Living Proof
by HardlyFatal
Summary: In the middle of a war, with brutality and bloodshed overwhelming what little kindness and safety can be found, she meets a man who is everything she admires and respects. And it's not the man she thinks it will be.
1. Chapter 1

_ Seoul, South Korea, 1952_

Brienne knew she was in for a rough go when, upon being drafted, there wasn't a class A female uniform in her size in all of Asia. Resigned and frustrated, the supply sergeant just threw one for male officers at her and shouted at her to get the hell out of his quonset hut.

Though she was certain she was far more comfortable than her fellow nurses, who were always complaining about runs in their stockings and random hands wandering up their skirts.

Not that anyone was rushing to sneak a hand up _Brienne's _skirts…

With a sigh, she exited the hangar to look at where the helicopter was poised to take her to her new home for the foreseeable future: the 121st evacuation hospital in Uijeongbu. Her new CO was Colonel Randyll Tarly, a man so famed for his rigid adherence to discipline that he was whispered about like the bogeyman even as far away as Tokyo; in Seoul, he was an outright legend.

Brienne could admit that she herself was perhaps a bit overfond of rules and policy, so she wouldn't hold that against him. She just hoped he wouldn't have a problem with his newest nurse being, well… Brienne.

"You ready, lieutenant? Let's get a move on," said a resonant male voice, accompanied by a hearty slap to the shoulder as a man, presumably the chopper's pilot, strode by. He was tall and fit— though the exaggerated width of his shoulders had to owe more to the leather airman's jacket he wore than actual musculature, surely? His hair, far longer than regulation permitted, lay on the sheepskin lining of his collar, shining golden even in the sickly orange lights of the helipad.

_I bet he's one of those flyboys we heard about during the last war,_ she thought with some amusement, if his confident strut were any indication. With a tiny grin, she clambered over the medevac pannier and up, into the shotgun seat to his right, and pulled the door to.

…and then nearly swallowed her tongue when she glanced to the side and caught a glimpse of his profile. He was better-looking than Cary Grant— no, Errol Flynn— no, he outshone even her personal favorite, Gary Cooper.

"You'd better roll your tongue back up, lieutenant, or you'll be bucking for an undesirable," the pilot said with a smirk, firing up the engine.

Brienne hastened to do just that as the rotor began its ponderous, groaning spin, facing forward with eyes rigidly aimed out the bulbous glass canopy. It was a beautiful day; glorious, even, with a cloudless sky the color of a Gauloise packet. Of course she had to ruin it by making a fool of herself.

With a heave, the copter took off, causing Brienne's stomach to swoop until its attitude smoothed and the horizon ended up where it ought to be. A flash of gold caught her eye; it was a small stuffed toy, a lion, with a cord extending from the top of its head. The cord had been looped over a long lever toward the top of the instrument panel.

A large hand, its skin bronzed, entered her line of sight, forefinger extended toward a ragged headset. Gingerly, she donned it, wincing as the cracked leather abraded the sensitive whorls of her ears.

Barely had she gotten them on when he began speaking.

"That's my good luck charm," he said, gesturing to the lion. "Nephew gave it to me."

"It's cute," she replied, though with how its plush fur had gotten matted down, it had clearly been caught in the rain more than a few times.

"What's your name, lieutenant?" he asked.

"Brienne Tarth," she replied cautiously. She disliked when men had that teasing lilt to their voices. It always boded ill for her.

"That's a weird name for a guy," he muttered, to himself she was sure, and she couldn't resist shooting him another glance. He shot her one in return and physically startled back at the sight of her full-on. "Are you a _woman_?" he demanded, incredulous.

She was no less incredulous at the sight of him full-on. Almost unnaturally symmetrical, his features were perfectly, classically arranged, and his eyes were green like the first leaves of spring.

"Wow," he murmured after a few more moments of shared, frozen shock. "Those eyes of yours… they don't let a man keep any secrets, do they?"

"What?" He was talking nonsense and, she was growing alarmed to see, not paying the least bit of attention to where they were flying.

"They are peering into my soul," he announced. "Stop that, you vixen, we've only just met. I don't let a woman peer into my soul until the third date at soonest."

_Ah,_ she thought with a roll of the referenced eyes. _He is an idiot._

"That's no way to treat a superior officer," he said in response to the gesture. "An eyeroll gets you twenty lashes with a wet noodle."

He flashed her a smile she figured was supposed to be charming. She only found it unbearably smug, and ignored him.

"C'mon," he wheedled after a minute or two of silence on her part. "We're stuck with each other for an hour before we reach Uijeongbu. Might as well make conversation."

Her head swiveled slowly to stare at him; he had to be at least five years older than her, and he was whining? He smiled again, and this time it was less smug and more genuine, so she relented.

"Fine," she said, feeling a bit sulky. "What do you want to talk about?"

His eyes rounded in glee. It gave her a feeling of great foreboding. "Have you always been this enormous?"

_Lord love a duck. _She was willing to bet this chopper ride would be more harrowing than working at one of the MASH units just a few miles from the front.

"Yes," she replied, deadpan. "I was born this exact same size. The delivery was hell on my mother."

He gave a delighted laugh.

"I bet she pulled through like a trooper, though," he said. "If she's anything like you."

"Oh, she's even bigger," said Brienne. "It's just that I was born wearing this uniform, and my bars are pretty pointy at the corners. Otherwise, she'd barely have noticed."

He laughed again, his eyes shining with amusement as he glanced at her again.

"They must have a powerful need for you at the one-twenty-first if they're having me fly you there," he commented, his tone casual but his expression curious. "There something special about you?"

"You mean, besides my X-ray eyes?" Brienne replied, ridiculously pleased when he laughed for a third time. "No, I can't think of anything that sets me apart from any other nurse. Maybe they're just short and have an urgent need for a full complement."

"If they're short, you'll sure fix that in a hurry."

"A joke about my height? Why, captain, how original of you. I never get those."

"Captain! How dare you," he retorted in a tone of great injury. "I'll have you know I'm a major, so show the proper respect or you'll get that appointment with a wet noodle even sooner than you think."

"They're promoting the silliest people these days," Brienne mock-sighed. This… this was _fun_, goofing around with this ludicrous, impossibly handsome man.

"Alright, that's it, the minute we land, you're going over my knee."

It was Brienne's turn to laugh. "You can try."

"You don't think I'm strong enough?" There was something provocative in his voice and Brienne was still laughing when she turned to face him, expecting to see that grin of his, but instead he was just… looking at her, gaze oddly serious, and a ripple of awareness rolled through her.

For a moment, suspended in mid-air with blue sky all around, at the mercy of the man's skill and caught in a web of his myriad attractions, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the world. He had X-ray eyes himself, piercing and intent; it felt like he could see all the way to her bones.

Brienne tried to keep her focus on those eyes, but against her will, her attention wandered down, past his nose, to his beautifully shaped lips. Pink, with a faint sheen, like he'd just licked them… _she _wanted to lick them, and was amazed to have verbalized the desire, even if only to herself. She'd never had _that _sort of thought about a man before, but what a man!

"You could be the Mata Hari of the Korean War, if you wanted," he murmured, then, ruining everything. "You could make me spill every secret I have."

She jerked back in confusion. What…? She was only looking at him, nothing more, not with any particular expression, how— oh. He was making fun of her looks, being ironic, pointing out the vast difference between Brienne and the famously beautiful spy. Stung, she faced forward, stonily gazing out the bubble-shaped canopy at the passing landscape while her face burned in humiliation. Served her right for playing along with him. Even overtures of friendship never went well for her.

After a protracted few minutes of uncomfortable silence, the pilot cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."

She nodded without turning her head.

Neither spoke again the rest of the trip, and Brienne fled from the helipad the moment she touched foot to ground again.

.

* * *

.

"So you were flown in by Lannister," commented one of the surgeons, Renly Baratheon, the next day while they were resectioning an arthroplasty together.

Her time at the 121st evac hospital thus far had been a bewildering flurry of meeting her fellow nurses, the surgeons, the X-ray and lab techs, the various corpsmen and medics. To a one, they all stared at her in amazement, but she was pleased to find that that treatment soon settled down and then vanished. She was very happy that Renly, the handsomest of the surgeons, had asked her to be his nurse when the shouts of 'incoming' had started coming and ambulances began to careen into camp.

They were on their fifth patient, three hours in. They'd fallen silent so as to concentrate, only speaking to discuss surgical implements, and then…

"Is that his name?" she asked absently while providing suction to a squirting artery. "I suppose, yes." She darted a glance across the patient's gaping surgical site to Renly. "Why?"

Even though he was masked, she could tell by the crinkling of his eyes that he was smiling. "Just wondering what you thought of him. He's a man with a certain reputation and every lady who meets him seems to form an opinion. They either love him—"

Brienne couldn't hold back her huff of irritation.

"—or they hate him," Renly finished. "I can guess which group you fall into."

"He seemed fine at first. Pleasant, even. Funny. But…" Brienne darted a glance up at Renly; dare she bare a bit of herself with him? He seemed kind, hadn't made any cruel or snide comments after his initial surprise to see her. She decided to risk it. "It wasn't long before he made fun of my looks."

Renly's gaze was sympathetic. "There's a lot of women who wouldn't care how rude he is. They'll put up with a lot to be with a handsome, dashing chopper pilot."

"Bully for them. I don't have that kind of patience."

Renly laughed softly. "Me, neither."

"He's not my type, anyway." _My type is someone gentle and quiet and kind, not brash and mouthy and so handsome it makes my eyes hurt._

"I had a feeling he wasn't," said Renly, his tone warmer than before, his smile a bit more friendly.

.

* * *

.

After that, Brienne seemed to have been initiated into some sort of little club, populated by Renly as well as two of the other nurses, a few MPs, the X-ray tech, and a handful of corpsmen. They weren't always the same combination of folks, because of the variations in duty roster, but there were always a few of them available to take meals together, pair up for PT in the morning, or relax together in the evenings between dinner and lights-out.

Brienne made tentative forays into friendship with others, as well, but was rebuffed in a range of reactions from cool politeness to outward hostility, for no reason she could discern. But it wasn't as if she had to be close to everyone; they were there to save lives, to serve their country, not to build life-long friendships. As long as they could work together, as long as there was no outright hostility, Brienne could live with it.

She saw Major Lannister frequently. His primary function was to fetch critically wounded soldiers, who wouldn't survive a long and bumpy ambulance ride, from the front. He transported them to the nearest MASH unit for lightning-fast operations, called 'meatball surgery', that would keep them alive until he could get them from there to an evac hospital, where they'd be further stabilized.

He seemed to have a circuit: front-line battalion aid stations to MASH units to evac hospital, then back again, with occasional forays to Inchon and Seoul, never staying in one place for more than a day. He didn't have a home base, only crashing in a vacant bunk wherever he ended up that night. It seemed lonely and rootless to Brienne, but it didn't seem to affect him one way or the other.

He'd nod to her in greeting whenever they happened upon each other, at first with the neutral respect of one officer to another, but as time passed, his nods became more and more saucy, then accompanied by winks, and then he left off nodding entirely to smile at her instead, and those smiles seemed to be saying something Brienne couldn't interpret. All she knew was that they made her blush and feel hot and a little sweaty and she would just avert her eyes and hurry away, eager to find Renly or one of the others in their little group of friends to distract her from the confusion Major Lannister always seemed to stir in her.

The CO didn't seem to like her, nor did the head nurse. Colonel Tarly was a talented surgeon and an effective superior officer, but he was career Army and did everything by the book, to the chagrin of the drafted civilian medical staff, who only wanted to think about anything but the war and injured and sick and dying soldiers during their off time.

Major Roelle was the head nurse, and she was somehow even more strict than the colonel. She watched her nurses like a proverbial hawk, expecting them in the exercise ground for morning PT within five minutes of reveille or there was a tongue-lashing and report filed that very same day. She had grilled Brienne extensively on which surgical procedures Brienne was familiar with, which she had participated in personally, which symptoms she was able to recognize and diagnose, until Brienne felt as if she'd sat for her licensing exams all over again.

Brienne's very existence seemed to vex her CO and head nurse, as if the fact that she merely _was _insulted them gravely. Was it her height? Her looks? Her hair? Her freckles? That she was from North Carolina and it showed in the soft accent she couldn't seem to get rid of no matter how she tried? Perhaps they were Northerners and still held a grudge about the Civil War, even a century later.

Whatever it was, she felt plunged into icy water whenever she had the misfortune to be in either of their presences, and tried to avoid it at all costs, with varying levels of success over the months.

.

* * *

.

It came to pass that the 8063rd MASH unit had a bad day. The front raced closer to them faster than they could bug out and they were being shelled, losing one of their doctors and three of their nurses. There was some sort of problem getting replacements, so other MASH units and the 121st had been tapped to loan various of the staff to the 8063rd until those replacements came.

"Renly's been here the shortest," Roelle informed Brienne and the other nurses with whom she shared a tent. Lack of seniority meant the newest physician on unit drew the worst assignments. "Which of you wants to go along?"

"I will," Brienne said quickly, before anyone else could. They worked well together, a seamless team, with Brienne knowing what Renly would need before he asked for it, and him trusting her to close up after he was done so he could hasten on to the next patient. The other nurses were good, competent, but they didn't have the smooth dynamic she had with Renly. They'd be most effective together.

"You're to be my nurse?" he asked, his face lighting up when she joined him to jog up the path to the helipad where their transport was awaiting them. "I feel lucky!"

"You and me both," she replied, laughing as they ducked under the swirling rotor.

She wasn't laughing a moment later when she realized their pilot would be Major Lannister.

"So we can do this one of two ways," Lannister said with a sparkling grin as he looked them both over. "Either we all become very good friends here in the cockpit together, or you each pick a pannier and get comfortable."

"What?" squeaked Renly. He had never made a secret of his dislike of heights, and Brienne knew the only thing worse than being in a helicopter would be laying flat on his back and unable to see anything but the sky above. At least if he were sitting upright, he'd be able to see that they weren't crashing.

"It's so we don't overbalance on one side," Brienne said with a sigh.

"Get the girl a prize," said Lannister, "she guessed it in one."

She rolled her eyes and, when it made him laugh, bit her tongue to keep from scolding him for being so cavalier. Didn't he see how nervous Renly was?

"I'll do whichever you want," she told Renly.

"I'm not laying in a pannier," he said firmly. "Get in, Brienne."

Now Brienne squeaked. Being pressed up close to Lannister sounded like a _terrible _idea. "Y-you should get in first."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer having a lady sit within kissing distance rather than a gent," quipped Lannister.

Renly grinned. "My loss," he said, giving Brienne a nudge.

Resigned, she climbed up and scooted over until she was squashed against the major. She scowled, both irritated and uncomfortably aware of him, his heat and strength, all down her left side.

Then Renly hauled himself in on her other side and she was made aware of him, as well, but for a different reason: she'd come to think more and more of him until she had to admit to an infatuation. Oh, she knew it wouldn't come to anything— no handsome man would ever want her, it was a sad fact she'd accepted long ago— but that didn't mean she couldn't still feel things for him. His cologne was redolent of nutmeg and cedar and citrus, and it made her blush hotly.

She smiled down at her hands, pleased that if she had to go to a MASH unit, she was at least going with Renly.

"You going to buckle up or sit there grinning all day?" Lannister asked her with a nudge of the elbow to her ribs. "C'mon, the eight-oh-sixty-third needs you sooner rather than later."

She gave him narrow eyes but obediently fastened her harness. Beside her, Renly was doing the same, very carefully ensuring the straps were properly positioned and his buckle was appropriately snug. Lannister pulled back on the stick, the copter rose in the air, and Renly scrabbled for a handhold on Brienne's thigh, making her suck in a sudden, shocked breath.

"Oh, boy," muttered Lannister.

.

* * *

.

Well, now, on a summer night in a dusky room

Come a little piece of the Lord's undying light

It was all the beauty I could take

Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make 


	2. Chapter 2

Things were bad at the 8063rd. They'd bugged out three miles south of the front and the camp was stabilized there, but the loss of medical personnel had devastated their efficacy. As many casualties as possible were being routed to the MASH 4077, but there were only so many patients that MASH could take on. Renly's and Brienne's arrival was heralded with such gratitude, it was almost embarrassing.

Lannister took off immediately, headed for a battalion aid station right on the line, where he'd pick up soldiers just-plucked from a foxhole, stabilized in the station, and then zip them to one of the MASHes. It was dangerous going, with the North Koreans making particular efforts to shoot down any relief aircraft they saw. She didn't like him, really, but Brienne still whispered a prayer under her breath for his safety.

They were met at the helipad and hurried to the operating room after scrubbing up for a few minutes less than Brienne would have liked, but time was of the essence. The corpsman's announcement of their arrival was met by a relieved cheer.

"Welcome," said one masked doctor. "Colonel Stark. You Baratheon and Tarth?"

"Yes, sir," said Renly. "Eddard Stark?"

"That'd be me," the colonel said. "You're Bob's youngest brother? Good to have you."

"My brother is his best friend," Renly told her as their patient was carried in and placed on the table between them.

That was the last they said for hours that wasn't care-related. One after the other after the other came the patients: gut wounds, chest wounds, arm and leg wounds. They grafted arteries and resectioned intestines and reinflated collapsed lungs and drilled burr holes to drain subdural hematomas and amputated shredded limbs.

After the tenth hour, they began switching off with the anesthesiologist just so they could sit down for an hour. The camp chaplain, Father Meribald, fed them sandwiches and black coffee where they stood before slipping away to do the same to the team at the next table. They shifted the whole setup a yard in one direction so the blood under their feet could be mopped up, and then an hour later, did the same thing in the other direction for another mopping. They went through dozens of pairs of gloves and innumerable quantities of whole blood, plasma, morphine, silk thread, clamps, and drains. They left only to rush to the latrines and back.

At some point, someone offered to replace them, saying they should go and rest, but they refused. If they stopped, if they lay down, they'd never get back up again. Besides, it wasn't their unit— where would they go? So they just kept operating.

When the flood of wounded finally slowed to a stop, they stumbled into the scrub area to collapse on a hard bench, desperate to get off their feet, leaning against each other so they wouldn't fall to the ground.

"That was some damned fine surgery," someone commented at some point later.

Brienne woke from her muddled doze to see who it was and found Colonel Stark standing before them. She elbowed Renly awake.

"Thank you, sir," she mumbled. "Do we stay here tonight? Or go back?"

"Whichever you want," Stark replied. "Baratheon, Captain Tyrell has said you can crash with him in the male officers' tent."

"I'll stay," slurred Renly. "Haven't seen him in a while."

"I'll… go back," Brienne therefore said. She didn't know anyone at the 8063rd and it felt like it would be an imposition to stick around. "If there's a chopper or a jeep."

"Jeep would take an hour. Copter will take you twenty minutes. Go find Lannister in the officers' club and have him bring you. He's not doing anything but bothering my nurses." With that, Stark disappeared into post-op.

Brienne and Renly left the hospital building, standing outside and blinking up at the bright sky overhead. They had arrived just before dark the day before, and it had to be after noon now.

"We operated through the night," Renly said, sounding awed.

"I can't believe we managed—" Brienne began, but a cry of "Renly!" interrupted her.

A young man jogged toward them, his curly chestnut hair gleaming richly in the sunlight.

"Loras." Renly smiled at the newcomer, who beamed at him in pleasure. "Brienne, this is Loras Tyrell."

"_Doctor_ Loras Tyrell," the other man corrected archly. "He keeps forgetting."

"You'll always be just a baby pre-med to me," Renly said, and he and Loras exchanged another smile.

"I'm sure you're about to fall over," said Loras. "Come to our tent, there's a spare cot." He looked to Brienne, curiosity plain in his lively brown eyes, but not surprise or derision at her looks, almost as if he'd already known about her. "Are you staying, too?"

"No, I'm going back," she said. "No place like home, and all that."

He smiled politely. "Or as close as you can get, over here. Alright, safe trip back." He put an arm around Renly and began to steer him away. "I promise I won't play my records any louder than a dull roar…" he was teasing Renly as they departed.

Brienne looked around until she saw the tent with "officers' club" on the door. Upon entering, she was struck by how empty it was, in contrast to the always-bustling o-club at the 121st. MASH units were much smaller, though, so it stood to reason that there would be fewer people in it, especially in the middle of the day.

One couple was swaying to 'How High the Moon' at a speed half the song's tempo; another couple canoodled at a table in the far back, taking advantage of the shadowy corner. And there, by himself at the bar, was Major Lannister, nowhere near any nurse that Brienne could see.

She walked up to him but, in her exhaustion, couldn't think of any words to say, so she just… stood there. After a moment, he realized her presence and spun on his stool to face her. She thought he might poke fun, tease her for her haggard appearance, but he just studied her with grave eyes.

"Ready to go?" he asked. She could manage a nod, so she nodded.

He left his half-full beer bottle, dropped a dollar bill on the bar, and they departed. Halfway to the helipad, his arm came around her waist, and she realized she'd been about to fall off the path and into the brush edging it.

"Steady," he said. "You can sleep in the copter."

"Okay," she agreed. That sounded wonderful.

Lannister stuffed her in the cockpit, not in the rightmost seat but in the middle, so she'd be squashed up next to him again.

"Why?" she asked as he buckled her in, not caring in the slightest that his hands were going between her legs to bring the crotch strap of the harness up to the buckle. At that moment, she wasn't even sure she had a crotch. She was nothing but a breathing sack of tiredness.

"Even strapped in, the way you look, you could fall out," he replied, fastening his own harness. "At least this way I have a chance of grabbing you before you tip over and take a dive."

"Okay," she said again, and he laughed.

"So all I have to do to get you to agree with me is tire you out?" His gaze was amused but oddly tender— no, she was mistaken, probably hallucinating from sleep deprivation. "Noted."

She didn't answer, just let her eyes close, hoping for rest, but the noise of the whirring blade kept her from dropping off.

"I looked in on you whenever I came back with another group of wounded," Lannister was saying. "To see if you needed a ride back. But you were still there, every time. Never seen anything like it."

"We lost some," she protested, the memory of those deaths lingering. "Too many."

"You saved far more," he countered. "You saved some that no one else could have."

She swiveled her head on her tired, tense neck so she could look at him. He looked back: serious, certain.

"Okay," she replied. Why argue, if he were so determined to compliment her?

"That's right," he said, grinning, and went back to paying attention to piloting.

Brienne must have dozed off, then, or perhaps she just blacked out. Whichever it was, she awoke when the chopper landed with a gentle thump on the ground and found her head was on Lannister's shoulder.

"Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey," he said, amusement in his voice, and gave her a little shake.

" 'm up," she grumbled. That had not been even a minute fraction of the amount of sleep she needed, but… she was back at the 121st. Her cot was nearby. It was only a matter of minutes before she'd be in it. She just had to get there, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to manage it on her own.

The major's hands were between her legs, fussing with the harness buckle and straps, again, and once more, she could not have cared less. She looked down at his golden hair, at how the sun gleamed on it through the glass canopy, and before she knew it, her hand was on it, petting it, enjoying its softness.

He glanced sharply up at her. "Something wrong with my hair?"

" 's pretty," she yawned. "Good to see something pretty after seeing a whole lot of ugly for hours n' hours."

"Can't argue with you, there." He heaved her out of the cockpit and stood, arms out like a parent teaching a baby to walk, until he was sure she wouldn't keel over. "Any time you want to stare at my prettiness to get the sight of blood and guts out of your mind, you just let me know."

"Hah," she said, and then had to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Fortunately, Lannister was there with his arm around her waist again, guiding her down the path and through the base.

"What's wrong with you?" demanded a cold voice. Brienne blinked and squinted to find Colonel Tarly there, glaring at them. "Are you drunk?"

"No, sir," she said. She rather wished she were.

When no more information was forthcoming, Tarly reddened in fury. "Then why are you incapable of standing without assistance, lieutenant?"

She blinked at him some more. He knew where she'd been; she'd seen Major Roelle inform him that Brienne would be going with Renly.

"She was assisting Captain Baratheon at the 8063rd as ordered, Colonel," Lannister said, his voice tight. "They only just finished a little while ago. I brought her right back when they were done. They were operating the whole time. She hasn't slept in almost two days. She's been on her feet for eighteen hours."

"She doesn't need you to make excuses for her, major," snapped Tarly. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," said Lannister, his insolent tone at odds with the respectful address. He began to lead Brienne away and she obediently went right along with him.

All too soon, however, Major Roelle's strident tones could be heard. "I'll take her from here, major," she said, and practically yanked Brienne away from Lannister.

" 's okay," Brienne told him. "Thanks."

"Anything for you, Tarth," he replied, but he wasn't smiling like one might expect, for making a joke. He was probably fine, just wanting to get back to his unfinished bottle of beer. "Take care."

"Okay," she said, and he laughed.

Roelle guided her to her tent, though with a far more impersonal and less careful hand. "You smell," she stated. "Take a shower."

"But, major, I'll drown!" Brienne protested, crawling onto her bunk.

Roelle said something in reply, but Brienne was already asleep.

.

* * *

.

"Huh," said Renly, glancing over Brienne's shoulder. "I wonder what's wrong with him."

The officers' club was jumping; the weather had faded from Korea's too-brief autumn into a winter that had everyone huddling together for warmth and comfort. It had been two days since any wounded had arrived so everyone was well-rested, and they'd been paid just that afternoon so they had MPCs to burn.

"Hm?" Brienne twisted around to look behind her.

Major Lannister was at the bar and based upon how he was listing to starboard, it was clear he was at the "pink elephants" stage of drunk. Brienne understood Renly's surprise, then; the major was not one to drink to excess, since he could be called upon to fly at any moment, and didn't seem much inclined to in any case, from what she'd seen.

Ever since she and Renly had gone to the 8063rd months earlier, and the major had been so helpful and— dare she say it— kind, when she'd been out of her head from exhaustion, they'd become… well, not friends, not really, but… friendly? They were cordial to each other. Brienne had regained her courage to joke with him, to his apparent delight. She found herself pleased to see that he hadn't gotten shot down yet by some anti-aircraft artillery; he would seem equally pleased that she hadn't dropped dead from overwork yet. They'd even had the odd drink together, on occasion.

So it was with concern that she observed him, swaying upon his bar stool, his arm languid and uncoordinated in the way of the truly soused. Before she realized what she was doing, she rose from the table where she'd been sitting with Renly, and a few other doctors and nurses, and made her way to the major's side.

He swung around with exaggerated care to see who was pulling up the stool next to him, and his face lit up to see Brienne.

"Lieutenant Tarth!" he exclaimed, brandishing his half-empty lowball glass in tribute. "Th'nicest woman in Korea!"

"I'm pretty sure that's untrue," she told him, but couldn't repress a grin at how silly he was.

"You're right," he slurred. "You're the nicest woman in th'whole _world_!"

She laughed outright. "I'm _positive _that's not true."

"No, you are!" he protested, eyes very wide and earnest. "If I had a dollar for every time a woman had disappointed me, I'd be a very rich man."

"You're already a very rich man." She'd heard the gossip, even read the newspaper articles; he was the eldest son of one of the wealthiest business magnates in the country. What he was doing, risking his life in a chopper in Korea, was a mystery to Brienne.

"Then I'd be very richer," he said with finality.

"All right," she agreed, knowing better than to be argumentative with a drunk person. "You look tired. I know I am. What say I help you to your bunk?"

He gazed at her a long moment instead of replying, and for a few seconds, she could have sworn he was stone-cold sober. But then he drained the last of his whisky and was back to being goofily intoxicated.

"Sure," he said, heaving himself from the stool but immediately pitching forward, almost into Brienne's lap. "Oopsy-daisy."

She was loath to get too chummy with him in full view of the worst gossips on base, i.e., the 121st's officers, but he had helped her navigate when she'd been too tired to walk a straight line. She owed him.

Brienne pushed him upright and leaned him against the bar while she stood, then grasped his wrist and hauled his arm around her shoulder.

"Oh!" he said when he realized what she was doing. "Returning the favor?"

"Yep."

She concentrated on maneuvering him between the narrow gaps in the bustling throng and steadfastly ignored the interested glances and whispers she knew they were garnering. She could only hope her lack of looks would nip in the bud any rumors that she and Lannister were up to anything illicit, though his refusal of any and all passes by various enamored nurses (and a few of the doctors) should also help to keep them quiet, too— he was infamous, at this point, for his persistent failure to take anyone up on their offers to share a bunk.

Once outside, the cool night air seemed to perk him up; it wasn't but a few steps before he was steadier on his feet and Brienne felt safe in relinquishing his arm. He still tottered a bit but wasn't tripping over any tent cords, so she let him be.

"So, Lannister," she began after a bit, "what's all this about?"

"All this?" he said, looking up from where he'd been studying the ground before them, presumably for any wayward stones that might trip him. His eyes were bright from the liquor but behind it, she saw misery.

Brienne waved a hand to encompass his entire body. "Drinking so much. It's the first time I've seen you like this. Something happen?"

He didn't answer until they were almost to the visiting officers' tent where he stayed when he was at the 121st evac. He fumbled at the door's handle but then stopped, hand resting on it but not pulling it open.

"My name's Jaime," he told her.

"…yes, I'm aware of that."

He grinned, teeth gleaming pale in the moonlight. "So you can call me that. Instead of 'Lannister' or 'major'. I'm tired of only being 'Lannister' or 'major' to everyone."

"…okay."

She expected him to go inside, but he just stood there, looking around: at her; at the sky, where some clouds drifted over the face of the moon; at the dark and quiet camp around them. Another pair of soldiers left the officers' club and headed in the direction of the supply tent, doubtless to enjoy an assignation in its dark and peaceful, if musty-smelling, interior.

"I'm waiting," he prompted, making her frown at him.

"For what?"

"For you to call me Jaime."

Brienne's temper ticked upwards, but she reminded herself of the futility of arguing with a drunk. She sighed, instead. "Jaime, you should go inside and sleep, now."

He gave her a radiant smile. "You should come put me to bed."

She studied him for a moment. "I will, if you tell me what's wrong."

The smile dropped away as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He didn't answer, only yanked open the door and entered, so she followed after him. He tried without success to light one of the lamps, so she took the matches from him before he set the tent or himself on fire and did it herself. When she turned around, it was to find he'd peeled off his jacket and shirt and was well on his way to shucking his trousers, as well.

_Oh, boy._ Jaime was built like one of those boxers she'd seen on Tarth's lone television set. Not one of the bulky ones, no, but the leanly muscled ones that moved like tigers in the ring, all pantherish grace and speed and devastating, sudden strength.

"I hope you're not trying to seduce me," she said, aiming for a jocular tone and ending up sounding every bit as profoundly uncomfortable as she felt.

"Would it work if I were?" he asked before sitting on the edge of the cot and beginning to unlace his boots. One thudded to the floor before Brienne was able to answer, too distracted by the flex and play of his biceps as he worked.

"No," she said, but her voice was a bit strangled-sounding and convinced neither of them.

"_You_ won't have me, _she _won't have me…" The second boot fell to the floor. Jaime's tone was light but he slumped forward, elbows on his bare knees, shoulders rounded in what seemed to be despair. Things were becoming clearer. He'd been dumped.

"I'm sorry," she began, but his head came up, and there was the light of battle in his eyes.

"You're sorry," he sneered. "As if you'd know what it's like to be dumped."

Though she was well used to derision regarding her romantic prospects, Brienne still couldn't repress a flinch. She'd stupidly thought they'd developed a truce, of sorts, over the months since the day she'd arrived in Korea and he'd been rude. She'd never learn, would she?

"No," she said coldly, "but I'm very aware of what it's like to be rejected. More than you, that's for damned sure."

He scowled. "You don't know what you're talking about. No one's dumping you."

"Because no one will date me in the first place!" This was a stupid conversation, and it was pointless to get into an argument with a drunk person. She told herself and told herself and she still did it anyway.

The silence after her outburst was interrupted only by the chirrup of the crickets that had infiltrated the tent. The flickering lamp light threw Jaime's handsome face into an intriguing arrangement of shadows and hollows and angles, one that seemed puzzled.

"Just…" Brienne forced her ire away. _In vino veritas_, sure, but… it wasn't his fault. She opened the locker in the corner and withdrew one of the bottles of fizzy water kept there for VIPs when they occupied the tent. She placed it on the little table beside the cot. "Go to sleep. Drink this when you wake up, or you'll feel terrible."

"I already feel terrible."

And damn her if she didn't feel terrible for him, even as she was mystified. Who would dump him, of all men on the planet? Sure, he was a pain in the patoot, with a questionable sense of humor and more than his share of arrogance, but… he was also a damned good pilot, flying in a war he could easily have paid his way free of, and by all accounts a reasonably decent guy. His lack of sleeping around, when he could have been the most proficient playboy in Korea, spoke of a devotion and loyalty to whichever woman had been criminally stupid enough to reject him.

"I'm sorry," Brienne said again, because she couldn't think of anything else.

"You're sorry," he repeated, but this time, it was without venom, just resignation. "Yeah. Me, too."

"For what it's worth…" she began, then stopped, biting her lip, knowing it was unwise to continue, but… there was a good chance he'd not remember a single word they'd said, the next day. And Brienne was no coward; she'd take her lumps, if it turned out he did remember. "I think she's got to be crazy. You're… you're a good guy. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

He stared up at her for a long time, wordlessly, endlessly. Brienne wanted, should have, gone, leaving him to the sorrows he'd tried to drink away, but she felt pinned there, like a butterfly to velvet. He swallowed, his throat working in a way that had her thinking thoughts inappropriate for a nurse of her patient… for wasn't that what he was to her, in that moment? An unhappy, unwell soldier relying on her for help?

"Thanks," he said at long last, his voice hoarse, as he looked away, seeming ashamed and lonely and sad. "You— thanks."

She made the grave mistake of putting a hand on his shoulder, wanting to offer comfort, but… he was sleek and hot under her palm, against the sensitive pads of her fingertips, and she snatched her hand back as if he'd burned her.

"Good– good night," she whispered, and fled.

Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make

In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused

Searching for a little bit of God's mercy

I found living proof


	3. Chapter 3

I put my heart and soul

I put 'em high upon a shelf

Right next to the faith,

the faith that I'd lost in myself

1952 turned into 1953, and it brought with it two developments that Brienne didn't expect and wasn't particularly happy about.

The first was that Major Jaime Lannister appeared to want to be _friends_ with her. She supposed it was only natural, after she'd helped him and he'd helped her. She didn't see what attraction there could possibly be for him in her; she was still the same awkward stodgy killjoy she'd always been accused of being by schoolmates and even some of her less kindly cousins.

For her, however… she could easily see why friendship with him was appealing. He was funny, somehow making her laugh even when she was exhausted or sad or in the grip of any variety of emotions she'd have sworn would be impossible to lift her from. Not one to easily shed gloom or vexation, was Brienne.

And over time, she learned that she could respect him, too. He never flinched from any assignment, no matter how dangerous; seemed to pursue such opportunities, in fact, until she accused him of having a death wish.

"And what if I do?" he challenged carelessly. "Flying is all I have, now."

He'd told her the truth of who had dumped him— his widowed sister, appallingly— just before inviting him to her upcoming remarriage and spurring him to need rescuing from Brienne due to extreme intoxication. It had taken her a while to come to terms with it, but who was she to say who could or couldn't love someone else?

For every old sock, there was an old shoe, her father always said. Some people just seemed to fit together despite what people thought was right or wrong. Love was rare, and it seemed that in a world filled with the brutality and bloodshed Brienne saw daily, only becoming rarer. You had to reach out and grasp for whatever affection and closeness and safety you could get. In a family like Jaime's, with a father as awful as Tywin Lannister seemed from what Jaime told her, she could easily see the twins clinging to each other as a bulwark against the loneliness and grief they'd experienced.

Jaime had also mentioned how his insistence of a military career, as well as his refusal to shirk it to take his 'rightful' place helping his father run the family corporation, had ended with him disinherited and all his relatives under strict command to shun him accordingly, lest the money they relied upon from his father instantly dry up.

Affront and fury had bubbled up in her when he'd revealed that to her, and her impulses— to hug him, to find his father and punch him in the nose, to offer her own meager family as a substitute— had to be tightly bitten back.

_We'll_ _take you, then,_ she'd thought fiercely. _You're decent and honorable and brave. Dad would be __thrilled_ _to have you for a son. _She thought it so hard that, when he glanced up and found her staring at him, for a moment she feared he could somehow hear it.

Jaime didn't say anything, but some tension released in his face, and the smile he gave her was unexpectedly glad.

"Yeah," he said, understanding with that uncanny perception of his what she had not said. "I'd want to wipe the floor with anyone who hurt you, too."

And so it came as no surprise whatsoever when the various men who had begun trying to make time with Brienne— one of the corpsmen, an X-ray tech, and one of the lab techs— reported for duty one day beat to hell, and Jaime appeared with split knuckles and an absolutely magnificent black eye.

He refused to tell her why he'd kicked the shit out of Hyle and Ronnet and Ben, nor would those three reveal the reason, either.

"I trust you," Jaime had told her when she pressed the issue. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes, but—"

His smile was blinding. "Then just trust me to have done what needed to be done."

She had huffed but let it go. Trust did not come easily to her, but Jaime had earned it. Even if it did make her itchy not to know what had happened.

Brienne knew there were rumors about them. That they were casually fucking, that they were star-crossed lovers, that they were secretly married. There was even one rumor that Jaime was her friend because he was safe with her, that he wouldn't have to worry about her falling for him, which puzzled Brienne, because she couldn't imagine why a woman would not find Jaime appealing.

Each time another conjecture reached their ears, Jaime would be delighted, hooting with laughter at the more outrageous explanations. That last one, in particular, had made him laugh until he cried. Brienne just rolled her eyes, as she found herself doing a lot in Jaime's presence.

In another situation, she'd have been mortified. Worse, she'd probably have been at great risk of falling for him, because for all her great lumbering ugliness, she was cruelly susceptible to beauty in others. Fortunately— or unfortunately— for her, her heart had already been spoken for by the time she realized how close she and Jaime had become.

He wasn't the only good friend she'd made. Renly and she had bonded over work, their hands working in flawless concert over the injured and sick bodies of the soldiers they healed, as well as during their off time between the influx of wounded. They had a lot of shared interests and the same subdued sense of humor. His gentle and kind treatment of her, when others had been so cruel and harsh, was a much-needed balm to her tender psyche.

Between Renly and Jaime, Brienne came to feel valued and appreciated, and not in spite of her size and looks. Those characteristics simply didn't come into play, didn't matter. She wasn't made to feel like a charity case, included by others out of pity or because of an obligation, and it gave her the strength to shrug off the sly looks and quickly hushed whispers of those without the same greatness of soul that her friends possessed.

They couldn't stand each other, Jaime and Renly. They were long acquainted, it seemed. Jaime's sister had been married to Renly's brother. Their temperaments were always in conflict and Brienne found herself budgeting her time between them, spending it with Jaime when he was at the 121st and with Renly when Jaime was risking his life elsewhere in Korea.

Brienne was fully aware that Renly preferred the romantic company of other men. If it weren't apparent in his mannerisms, in the lilt of his voice, then it became transparently clear when they were at the 8063rd on another substitution assignment and she walked in on Renly in a passionate embrace with Captain Tyrell.

All she'd said was, "Be careful," before locking the door and leaving them to it, but she'd cried her eyes out in the shower that evening.

_Stupid_, she chastised herself even as she wept. Had she actually entertained a hope that Renly would reciprocate? _Stupid_.

She thought she hid her disappointment well, but she should have known Jaime could see through whatever façade she mustered; he could strip her bare of any pretenses at twenty paces. He studied her for a long moment before speaking.

"Am I getting another black eye?" he asked. "Aim me at the bastard I need to wallop. Just make sure you have a London broil ready to put over my face for afterward."

"No," she said— sniffled, really; it was lovely to have a friend who'd punch anyone who upset her— "you're not getting another black eye. I just… learned something I should have already known."

He didn't look anywhere near convinced, but he shrugged and nodded and that was that.

Her discovery about Renly did not, sadly, help to curb her tender feelings for him. Brienne resigned herself to yearning for him from afar. She contemplated requesting a transfer to another unit, perhaps a MASH. Not the 8063rd, though Colonel Stark had been vocal about the warm welcome he would give her if she would go there, because Loras was there. Even harder to bear than the man she wanted was to have to endure the presence of the person that man wanted instead of her.

But the 3099th MASH was a distinct possibility. She hadn't been swapped there too often in the year she'd been in Korea, but its CO was a wonderful grandpa of a man, Colonel Seaworth, and its head nurse was a Major Mordane, strict to the point of severe but surprisingly kind when the situation called for it.

Brienne decided to get Jaime's opinion about it, the next time he flew into the 121st. As soon as she was off shift, she went to the visitors' tent he had appropriated for the night, as was his wont. She thought he'd find her question unexceptional and merely give her his opinion of working so close to the front, and of having Seaworth for a commanding officer, but instead he stared at her in frank amazement.

"Is this about Renly?" he demanded.

"What— you— why—" she stammered weakly.

He laughed. Not pleasantly. "Are you seriously going to put yourself in danger just to get away from that idiot?"

She scowled. "It's not _that_ much danger," she muttered. "And besides, who said anything about—"

He didn't say a word to interrupt her fruitless denial, only quirked an arrogant golden brow, but it communicated his disbelief as loudly as a shout.

"Fine," she bit out. "I— he's— yes. It's— unpleasant, to be around him when I— yes. Okay? Yes."

She expected mockery, perhaps; a joke at her expense, for being so stupid as to fall for a homosexual. She did not, however, expect the look of unnerving intensity Jaime aimed her way.

"How," he asked her, his words slow and measured, "can you love a guy who only befriended you because he thinks you like women the way he likes men?"

Brienne was confused for a moment before a wave of heated embarrassment went through her, making her face and throat and chest flush red. "_What?_"

Both of his eyebrows flew up, skeptical and incredulous. "You didn't know? You really don't know?"

"Know what? Just tell me!"

"Renly thinks you're a lesbian," Jaime told her slowly. "Half of this unit thinks you're a lesbian. That's why they think I'm safe with you, because I don't have to worry about you hitting on me." His expression was one of pure disgust, at how stupid they were.

"But… but I'm not!" Brienne had never been so horrified in her life. "Why would anyone— I've never given any reason to think—!"

"I know you haven't," he said tersely, glancing away with a grimace.

"Then _why_?"

"Because of how big you are," he said reluctantly, looking like the words were being dragged from him by a tank. "How you don't wear ladies' clothes. How you haven't taken up with any of the men."

"I can't help how big I am! The ladies' uniforms don't fit me! And I haven't taken up with anyone because of Renly!" By the time she finished speaking, Brienne was nearly yelling. A cool thrill of shock had replaced the hot flush, so profound her hands were shaking and her teeth were chattering.

"I know. Calm down. I know." Jaime had his hands on her shoulders, was guiding her to sit down. She collapsed, for lack of a better word, onto the cot, shoulders bowed up as facts kept filtering through her distress.

Half of her unit thought she liked women. _Renly_ thought she liked women. The only reason he'd made overtures of friendship to her were because of that, not because he enjoyed her company. Not because he respected or admired her. Her only value to him had been because she was a kindred spirit to him, not due to their common interests or similarities, but because he thought she was an entirely different person.

Brienne pressed a hand to her sternum, which felt like it was cracking under the heaviness of her misery. She hadn't entertained any notion that he'd care for her romantically, but… that she'd been so completely misjudged, that someone whom she'd thought understood her— someone she'd come to value as one of her best friends, and for whom she'd come to care as a woman— hadn't really understood anything about her at all.

Renly had made an incorrect assumption about her, then based his friendship upon that assumption. He had spent time with her, revealed himself to her because of that assumption, because he felt comfortable sharing himself with her for _what_ he thought she was, rather than _who_ she was in reality. If it had hurt like fire when she'd realized about Renly with Loras, then this hurt like the most searing cold imaginable. She was so stupid, so very stupid, to have thought he could actually have liked her. _Her_.

"Brienne." Jaime broke into her derogatory musings. His eyes were not on her face, but lower; his brow was creased in concern.

She looked down and found that her hand was rubbing at her breastbone, just above where her shirt was buttoned. She'd been rubbing so hard, in fact, that the pale, freckled skin was quite reddened. It hadn't eased the pain underneath it, though. She lowered her hand to clutch at the cot's frame.

He sat beside her, their combined mass making the poor cot groan. "C'mon."

He put his arm around her, drew her close, and with a sigh, Brienne collapsed against him, trusting him to take her weight, to bear her despondency with her. She pressed her face against his neck, aware of how disgusting she must seem to him, all hot breath and snotty snuffling and blotchy, tear-streaked face rendered even uglier than usual. But he only held her tighter and rested his cheek on her head and murmured soothing nonsense to her until she calmed.

After a while, he stood and went to the locker, returning a few moments later with a damp cloth and a glass of water and a pair of aspirin.

"Wash your face, take these, drink all the water," he commanded, but his demeanor was benign.

She obeyed blindly, glad to have someone tell her what to do. Figuring things out for herself hadn't gone too well. She had a sudden thought that nearly swept her onto the floor from the force of it.

"Do _you_ think I'm a lesbian?" she asked pitifully, handing him the emptied glass. "Is that why you're my friend? Because I won't hit on you?"

He gave a bark of laughter as he set the glass on the table.

"No," he said shortly. "I'm your friend because you're the best person I've ever met. But even if you were a lesbian… we don't choose these things. Who we love. Who we care about. I don't pick my friends based on who they fuck. How is that my business? Even I'm not so full of myself that I'd do that to you when you didn't do it to me. We pay our debts, Lannisters… and I try not to be more of a hypocrite than I absolutely have to be."

"You're not a hypocrite! I've never met anyone else so true to what they say!" Brienne protested. Then she added, more subdued, "Too much so, sometimes."

Many had been the time she wished he'd just shut up when called to account for an unpopular opinion but no, Jaime always had to double down on whatever he asserted. It had resulted in a tense moment and the occasional fisticuffs more often than she liked. She had taken to keeping a Jaime-specific first aid kit in her footlocker for just such occasions, so it didn't come to Colonel Tarly's attention any more than it strictly had to. He disliked Jaime even more than he disliked her.

"Aw, Tarth, you love me!" he crowed, his grin relieved that she was recovering. He seemed a bit shaken; probably she had scared him with all her theatrics. He wasn't used to her being the excitable one. That was _his_ usual role. She was always the straight man to his antics.

"Not anymore, I don't," she said with a glower, but didn't mean it in the slightest, and well he knew it, if the brightening of his smile were any indication. She did love him; he was the best friend she'd ever had. Just an hour earlier, he'd have been neck-and-neck with Renly for that title, but… Renly was no longer a contender. Jaime won by default.

"Yeah, whatever." He was supremely undisturbed by any claims she might make to the contrary. "Listen, go to your tent, brush your teeth, go to bed. In the morning, put in for a transfer to the three-oh-double-nine. You'll hardly ever have to see that idiot again." He gave a little smile. "You'll feel better, eventually. I did. You helped me. I'll help you."

Brienne wobbled to her feet and even managed a smile, shaky though it might have been.

"Yeah. Okay." Halfway out the door, she paused and looked back over her shoulder, found him watching her with an oddly intent gaze. "Hey. Thank you."

His smile widened. "Anything for you, Tarth."

.

* * *

.

Brienne did request, and receive, a transfer to the 3099th MASH unit. Colonel Tarly seemed relieved to see the back of her. Major Roelle didn't react one way or another, just gave a short nod and turned away. For once, luck was with her and Renly was away on a three-day pass to Tokyo when the transfer came through, so she was able to depart for her new assignment without having to provide an explanation to him. She knew it was the coward's way out, but couldn't muster more than a pang of guilt about it.

Life at the 3099th was drastically different. Colonel Seaworth was the sweetest man Brienne had ever met, avuncular and kind, and Major Mordane was as strict a head nurse as Major Roelle but without the coldness. It was a smaller unit, just a third the size of the 121st evac hospital, and far less formal. One of the doctors wore a fishing hat all the time, another a Hawaiian shirt over his olive drab t-shirt in place of his fatigue shirt. All were uniformly dedicated and brilliant and she soon came to like them personally, in addition to the respect she felt for them professionally. No one said a word about her looks, no one disparaged her nursing skills, and she felt for the first time in her military career as if she were a valued member of the US forces.

MASH units were only a few miles from the front, and the second place the wounded would be treated after preliminary triage and stabilization at the battalion aid units stationed right at the front lines. Because of that, they not only received wounded in far worse shape than she had become used to at the 121st, but a greater flood of them in irregular spates— whenever battle broke out, basically.

And with only four surgeons, the need for them to finish up with each patient and move on to the next was imperative. Brienne found herself being taught not only how to close surgical incisions after the doctors were done with the hard work, but also how to do bowel resections and amputations and needle aspirations of collapsed lungs.

Soon she had gotten so proficient with it that many times one of the surgeons would merely identify the problem, direct her in how to solve it, and then leave her to it, with only periodic inquiries as to how she was doing along the way. In the real world, in a civilian hospital, it would never be permitted, but in Korea, when the alternative was to leave their boys to die for want of a surgeon, there was no alternative.

She made friends, eventually, as well: Podrick Payne was the company clerk, and Pia Denton was a nurse who had taken to surgical duties almost as well as Brienne had.

And then, of course, there was Jaime. She doubted it was a coincidence that he began to stay overnights at the 3099th instead of the 121st. He commandeered the visitors' tent at the MASH unit just as he had that of the evac hospital, and Brienne joined him there in the evenings after chow to spend it playing cards or listening to records or just talking. More often than not, Pod and Pia would join them, making a very merry group.

The brutal heat of summer finally eased into the cooler months of autumn, and the battle of Triangle Hill commenced. Week after week the battle continued, with heavy losses on both sides, and it came as no surprise to anyone when the call went out for volunteers from the MASH units and evac hospitals to replace medical personnel who had perished in the battalion aid stations.

"I know that look in your eye," Jaime told her upon one drop-off of wounded, as she performed triage on the soldier in the pannier closest to him. He'd flown in the battles of Heartbreak Ridge, the Punchbowl, White Horse, each time weary, but this time— this time, he looked truly distressed. "Don't do it."

"If not me, then who?" she asked while starting an IV of plasma and handing the soldier off to corpsmen for transport down from the helipad directly into the OR. "I should sit back while someone else does it?"

"Yes," he said fiercely. She stood, about to turn away, and he grasped her bloody hand. "Stay here and let someone else do it. Anyone else."

"That what you're going to do?" she shot back. "You're going to switch off the motor and go drinking in the o-club, now that you're done?"

They stared at each other in frustration, knowing neither would be relaxing any time soon, each as stubborn as the other, until one of the medics began shouting at them to "shit or get off the pot."

Brienne tossed Jaime a fulminating glare and left him there, following the troupe of wounded and nurses and medics to the hospital. After she'd seen everyone on their way to treatment of one sort or another, she went to Colonel Seaworth and told him of her intention to staff the nearest battalion aid station.

"They're likely running low on supplies. Take whatever you think you'll need." Then, to her surprise, he saluted her.

She dashed off to supply and filled four crates with plasma, gloves, silk thread, needles, syringes, morphine, clamps, retractors, suctioners, and everything else she could think of. Conscripting a few enlisted men to help her carry it up to the helipad, she was waiting there the next time Jaime flew in with another set of wounded to deposit.

"Dammit, Tarth," he snapped as she began to load the crates onto the panniers, two to a side. "I won't do it. I won't fly you there."

She heaved herself into the cockpit and buckled herself into the harness. "Then I guess we're going to be sitting here a while, because I'm not getting out."

There commenced another bout of glaring at each other in impotent fury, until finally Jaime gave a short nod, grinding his teeth if the rapid ticking of his jaw muscle were any indication. With short, jerky movements, he gripped the collective and stick and brought them aloft, banking sharply to turn them 180 degrees and head them back toward the battle. They did not speak during the flight.

She heard the artillery before she could see it, the sound of it booming across the landscape. Then they rounded a hill and— there it was.

Hell.

Men swarming both sides of Triangle Hill's ridge like so many ants, flashes of light as grenades went off, and noise. So very much noise: gunfire, explosions, screaming. Brienne swallowed, then swallowed again, but the lump climbing up her throat would not dissipate.

_What have I gotten myself into?_


	4. Chapter 4

You do some sad, sad things, baby  
When it's you you're tryin' to lose  
You do some sad and hurtful things  
I've seen living proof

Despite how little chance it looked like she had, Brienne knew there was no choice. She was there, now, and she'd be damned if she asked Jaime to bring her back to the 3099th because she was _afraid_.

_He _wasn't afraid; his face could have been carved from granite, so still and hard was it. She was not about to give into fear when he was being so stoic.

When they landed at the back of the line, where the aid station had been set up, she swiftly began unharnessing herself while corpsmen came forward to unload the supplies from the panniers. Jaime's hand came to cover one of hers, stilling its motion.

"One last chance," he said, his voice pitched low, but she somehow heard him anyway over the shouts of others and the whir of the rotor overhead. "I'll take you back. No judgment." He paused. "I'd be damned relieved, to be honest. You don't have to do this." His eyes met hers, then, and they were wide with naked apprehension. "Don't do this."

"I _do _have to do this," she said, far more softly than she had intended as she put her other hand over his. "You're being brave, flying into this disaster over and over, so I'm going to be brave, too."

He jerked back like she'd struck him. "You're doing this because I am? To _compete _with me?"

"Because you've inspired me," she shot back. "Jaime, they need me. How am I supposed to live with myself, knowing I kept myself somewhere safe while they died because I couldn't be bothered to do my job and help them?"

"Brienne," he said helplessly. He released her hand to grip the back of her neck, pulling her forward into an embrace, his lips finding her temple and pressing, a rough approximation of a kiss. "I'll be back for you. I promise, Brienne." His eyes burned into her. "I will."

She blinked repeatedly, confused but without the luxury of time to consider what in the hell had just happened. "I'll be waiting," was all she could think to say, and then she scrambled from the cockpit. She did not look back, even as she heard the rapidly fading sound of the chopper as he flew away.

Inside the aid station was chaos of the worst kind. Speaking at a normal volume was impossible; a dull roar at a minimum was needed to be heard over all the racket of the battle a few hundred yards away. Brienne tried to announce herself a few times but eventually gave up and just shouted "nurse here!" at the top of her lungs.

"Thank god!" exclaimed someone, the voice familiar, and then— Renly was there. He wasn't wearing scrubs, or a mask, or even gloves. He held his hands out and a medic poured alcohol over them to wash off the blood slicking them, pinkened fluid dripping unheeded onto the muddy ground, squelching beneath the boots of the others as they rushed past.

"Is that what passes for scrubbing?" she asked numbly, and he nodded.

"There's no time for anything else," he said. He looked ghastly, exhausted and gray and horror-stricken. "You can close as soon as I leave a patient—"

"I can operate on the less complicated things," she interrupted. His eyebrows flew up in surprise. "I've been learning a lot at the three-oh-double-nine."

"Good. We need another doctor but if you can do some of it…" He jerked his head in the direction of one soldier, moaning and tossing his head back and forth in pain because he'd lost both legs at the knees. "You able to handle that?"

She sucked in a deep breath and nodded.

"Go to it. Let me know if you need help."

And he was off to his own patient, a boy who looked no more than sixteen, with a gaping wound in his gut. Brienne held out her own hands, had alcohol doused over them, and went to her soldier. She was appalled to find a mere medic working the anesthesia, but what other choice did she have? It looked like she and Renly were the only ones there above that level of education. They were lucky to have the medics at all.

She had the soldier put under and then began the process of cleaning up the sites of the amputations, staunching the bleeding— to her horror, it was looking like cauterization of the veins and arteries was the fastest and thus preferred way of getting the job done— before setting about stitching the stumps closed. An injection of antibiotics to stave off infection, and another of morphine to keep the worst of the pain at bay— at least until they could get the soldier to a MASH unit for more comprehensive treatment, and the corpsmen were hauling him away on his litter and replacing him with another, this one marginally older but with what looked like an entire jeep's worth of shrapnel in his belly.

More alcohol over her hands, and she set to work. When she was done with him, there was another, and another, and another. After a while, she noticed that it was taking longer and longer for them to be replaced, and at first she was pleased because it meant she could take the opportunity to take a drink, eat something, use the latrine— which really just meant finding as private a spot as possible to relieve herself. It took a while for her to realize that the slowed pace was because there were fewer corpsmen present to do the toting and hefting.

"What's going on?" she asked no one in particular.

Renly answered. "They just told me that they've called a retreat. They're not going to bring us any more patients." But his expression was grim.

"Isn't that good?" She swiped her wrist across her sweat-damp forehead, shoving a wet hank of hair out of her eyes. Yesterday— hours earlier, even— she'd have been aghast at the casual disregard of contamination. Just then, she counted herself fortunate that her wrist was free enough of blood and shit that she wouldn't smear them across her face in the doing of it.

Renly's eyes were bleak as he glanced up from where he was packing a thigh wound with gauze. "It means that they're leaving us here."

Even as he said it, Brienne could hear the groaning of engines as ambulances and trucks and jeeps fired up and pelted down the rutted paths away from the battlefield. Besides her and Renly, there was another nurse— not nearly as proficient as Brienne— two medics and three corpsmen.

A captain, name of Martell according to his breast pocket, stuck his head under the grimy tarp serving as their operating room. "Retreat's been ordered. Time to bug out."

Brienne stared at him in disbelief. "We're up to our necks in wounded!" she exclaimed, gesturing at the half-dozen men still waiting for treatment. "What do you expect us to do, just leave them here?"

Judging from his expression, that was precisely what he thought they should do.

"Last ambulance is about to leave. You'd best be on it." And then he was gone.

Brienne tore her eyes from his departing back and took a deep, steadying breath before going to perform another speedy triage on the wounded. Half of them might survive a rushed, bumpy trip to a MASH unit, but the other half didn't have a chance without surgery that very moment, and Renly was still elbow-deep in his own patient.

"Take this one, and those two," she told the nurse. "Get them on the ambulance and go."

The nurse's eyes rounded in shock, but she knew there was no time to waste exclaiming over the suicidal foolishness of remaining with a group of soldiers that had only the faintest chance in hell of survival. She glanced at Brienne's name on her breast pocket.

"Tarth," she murmured, as if committing it to memory. "Yes, lieutenant."

Brienne got to work on the most dire of the soldiers as the nurse— Poole, her own breast pocket read— began to direct the medics and corpsmen in collecting the lesser wounded and carrying their litters out to the ambulance.

"Last chance," said the captain.

"We're staying," barked Renly.

The captain shrugged. "It's your funeral."

Brienne felt like kicking him but couldn't divert her attention from her patient. His gut was a mess, a kidney shredded beyond repair so she removed it and tossed it over her shoulder, sewing the gaping blood vessels closed before moving on to the slice in his bladder. When she was done with him, she had to enlist Renly to get his litter off the table and the next onto it.

This poor bastard had a thigh wound. The artery had been nicked but tied off early, so blood loss was less than it could have been, but she still had to sew it back together or he was done for. She started him on O neg and began working, dragging her wrist over her forehead again and again as the nervous sweat poured down her face.

When she went to do it once more, she met resistance— another's hand was there to get the job done for her. She looked up, and there was Jaime. His eyes were huge, horrified, and his hand was shaking as he wiped her face with a wad of bandages. She'd have to get more, as those had been intended to pack and bind the soldier's incision, but she was so profoundly grateful for his presence that she didn't mind in the least.

"Why are you here alone?" he demanded hoarsely. "Where's everyone else?"

"Retreated," she replied, then nodded toward the last patient. "You can take that one back on your next trip."

"And this one," said Renly, stepping back from his table and reaching for the basin of water. When they didn't need to be sterile, they just sluiced the blood off with whatever water was handy, to save on the alcohol. "I'll help you carry them over."

Brienne craned her neck around the tarp flap to see Jaime's helicopter had landed a dozen or so yards away. How had she not heard him? How had she not noticed the clouds of dust kicked up by the rotor? No time to ponder it. She had to keep working.

Jaime and Renly returned once for the other soldier, and a second time for Renly to begin working on the next one. Jaime prowled up beside Brienne and watched her work for a moment before saying, "Come with me now."

She glanced up at him in disbelief for a split second. "You're crazy."

"_You're _crazy, staying here when—"

He was cut off by a mortar shell exploding far too close overhead for comfort. It rattled the tarp poles and sent a cascade of filth from the roof supports. Brienne hunched her body over the open surgical site: better her getting even more dirty than that filth floating into his wound.

"Go," she told Jaime. "Bring them to a MASH. Then come back for the next two."

He didn't leave, didn't move, hardly seemed to be breathing.

"Jaime," she said. "_Now, _Jaime!"

There was the squelch of his boots in the bloody muck at their feet as he left, and then… nothing. Nothing but the explosions and gunfire and screaming, nothing but her own breath loud as a siren in her ears. She closed her patient and somehow managed to get his litter off the table, then the next soldier's onto it, without Renly's help. She had no time to get started on him, however, because Renly was calling for her.

"I need retraction," he said, and she provided it, falling seamlessly into their smooth dynamic, working in silence.

Then he asked, "Why did you transfer? Why didn't you answer my letters?"

She'd thrown them all away. Life was easier when she didn't spend it thinking about him.

"I'm not a lesbian," she told him, only sparing him a scant glance when he froze and stared at her. "And you were only my friend because you thought I was."

More silence. When it was evident he no longer needed another pair of hands, Brienne left his table for her own and began repairing the compound leg fracture awaiting her there. She could feel his eyes on her but couldn't spare the attention to look back at him, couldn't spare the hurt and betrayal she'd felt.

"I'm sorry," Renly said when he came over to assist her with suction, when she got a bleeder. "At first… yes. But over time… I did like you, regardless of that. I do like you." He stopped her with a bloody hand, stilling her busy fingers. "I am your friend, Brienne."

She nodded, somehow managing a smile, small and trembling on her lips. "And I am yours."

He managed a faint smile of his own before returning to his own patient. She felt a sense of peace, regarding Renly for the first time since she'd transferred.

And then a mortar blew up his side of the station.

There was no time for him to react, no time for him to evade it, or to scream, or even to breathe. One moment he was bending over the soldier on his table, and the next they were dead, he and the soldier both. Half of the soldier's torso was missing. Half of Renly's head was missing.

Brienne froze, her blood stilling in her veins, the air freezing in her lungs. Time stopped, and with it, even her heartbeat. She couldn't drag her eyes away from the gory spectacle, from the lumps of meat that had been the soldier and Renly.

_Renly. Dead. _In the space of a second, he was there, and then he was dead.

From a distance, she heard her name, and then a far away pressure on her arm. Dazed, she looked down, saw a hand gripping her. She felt a dim sense of pain at how tightly the hand was grasping her. She followed the hand up an arm, across a shoulder, to a face.

_Jaime_.

The world rushed back, and with it, anguish. She stared at him, speechless, taking in the horror on his pale, dirt-streaked face.

"Help," she whispered. "Help me."

She wasn't even sure what she was asking for, only knowing that whatever she was doing, she couldn't do it without him. She felt— stronger, with him there. She wasn't alone. Jaime was with her. She could do this.

"What do you need?" he asked raggedly.

"Wash your hands with alcohol," she said, her voice stronger.

He nodded, relief plain in his face, that she'd come back from whatever precipice of sanity she'd been edging along. After making liberal use of the alcohol, he returned to her table.

"That's a clamp," she said, pointing with her scalpel. "That's a retractor. That's suction. That's needle and silk. Thread the needle so it's ready for when I need it, then— suction! Suction!"

He was slow and clumsy but got the job done with her instruction. He even learned, very soon, to curve his body over the surgical site with every mortar, to protect the patient's wound from the pollution of dust and particulates from the smoke wafting through the air, filling their noses with the acrid smell of ashes and death. He held the incision closed while she sewed it shut, the row of stitches huge and messy, with none of the precision Brienne usually prided herself upon.

Brienne turned for the next patient and found there wasn't one.

"Oh. I guess we can go now."

She was aware of how numb, how detached, she sounded. It was pretty bad, if Jaime's worried face were anything to go by. But it was better than spacing out as she had, before she'd grounded herself in his presence. At least she could function.

They carried the patient out to the helicopter, fastening his litter in and buckling on the pannier shield. Jaime made to climb in, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Renly," she shouted over the din of ever-encroaching battle. The ground shook as another mortar hit nearby. "I can't leave him here."

He stared at her for a moment before nodding. They hurried back and slung Renly onto a litter, carrying him back and installing him on the vacant pannier. Jaime practically tossed Brienne into the cockpit before climbing in, and didn't wait until she'd finished fastening the harness before launching the chopper into motion, shooting them vertically so fast that her stomach swooped in protest.

It wasn't until she got her still-bloody hands to cooperate in buckling the harness that she noticed how he hadn't bothered with his own. She was just about to scold him for his negligence when she saw how strained and white his face was, how hard he was concentrating. He was flying in a jagged zigzag pattern, high then low, left then right, and she realized it was because the Chinese were shooting at them, aiming right for them, and he was doing everything he could to evade their bullets.

Without thinking overmuch about it, she reached over and began tugging his harness into place. She had to put her hands between his legs, drawing the straps up between his thighs and forcing the tang into the buckle, then repeating it with the shoulder straps. Once he was secure, Brienne slumped back and felt every ounce of energy leech out of her. If anything happened, if they couldn't stay aloft, if they had to fight the enemy, she didn't know if she could. She didn't have a scrap of anything left.

She didn't move a muscle— scarcely breathed— for another five minutes, then ten, and suddenly the sound of battle was just… gone. Gone were the whine of bullets as they streaked past, gone were the booming report of grenades and mortars. Gone were the screams of agony and terror. There was nothing but the loud whap-whap-whap of the rotor and Jaime's harsh breaths, panted from lips parted with exertion.

Brienne reached out and put her hand on his wrist, careful not to interfere with his use of the stick, just needing to feel his skin, the heat and life of him. She stared at his profile, aware he couldn't look at her for need to steer them to safety, but knowing he could still see her. There were no words for the extent of gratitude she felt, the relief and pride and admiration.

"Thank you," she managed at last, when the 3099th was in sight at the edge of the trees in the distance. "Jaime."

He spared her a glance, now that they were home safe, and let out a long-held breath.

"Anything for you, Tarth."

.

* * *

.

Brienne mourned Renly for a long time; not just for the thankless nature of his demise, so brutally after he'd worked for hour upon hour to save his patients, but for the wasted time she'd spent angry at him. That time could have been spent enjoying each other's company, working together in the OR, making the war less hellish for themselves and everyone else caught in it. In the aftermath of his passing, it seemed to her that holding him accountable for mistaking her romantic preferences was unduly harsh. Transferring to another unit seemed a ludicrous overreaction in comparison to _death_.

Jaime tried to be patient with her, she could tell, but as the weeks passed and she remained subdued, strained by efforts to socialize, that patience began to fray.

"You can't live your life drowning in regret," he told her one evening over a listless game of gin rummy. The cold wetness of spring was finally kindling into summer and the temperature was, at last, bearable without having to wear countless layers. Through the thin canvas walls and window screens came the faint sounds of a Victrola playing _Come On-a My House _somewhere a few tents away.

"I'm not drowning," she mumbled. Then, "It's not regret."

And it wasn't. She just couldn't get past how Renly was gone and she wasn't. Why him? Why not her?

"Then what is it?"

Brienne shrugged, biting her lip to keep from crying as she wanted to. "It's just… he had so much to live for. So many friends. A family. A career as a doctor. I don't have any of that. Besides my father, I'm alone. I'm just a nurse. All his education, wasted. All the people he mattered to, mourning. And instead of him, there's only me." She swallowed. "The wrong person died."

Jaime slammed his hand down on the table, sending half the cards flying.

"The hell it did," he said, his tone furious. "How _dare _you?"

She blinked, leaning back in her chair to put more space between them. "Jaime?"

"You're not _just _anything," he told her coldly. "You're the best nurse I've ever seen. And what am I, chopped liver? You think you don't matter to me? You think I wouldn't mourn for you?"

He stood and paced back and forth beside the table while he ranted.

"How dare you cheapen your life like that?" he continued, not losing any steam. "How dare you act like it wouldn't _kill _me to lose you, my best friend, the only friend I've ever had in my whole life, goddamn you—"

Brienne got to her feet, then, appalled to see how agitated he was. "Jaime, I didn't mean it like that, I didn't think—"

"No, you didn't, you don't!" He stopped pacing and stared at her, red-faced, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "You don't think before you head into danger, you don't think before you say things like that! You don't care what it would do to me, if you died! You don't know how close you came to it. You didn't notice all the craters, the shells, how close they were… it's a miracle one of them didn't hit you."

Speechless, appalled at her own callousness and the passion of his outburst, Brienne couldn't think of anything but to reach for him, hands outstretched, needing to comfort him somehow. He reached for her at the same time and they snatched each other close, pressing tightly.

"I'm sorry," she said, over and over. "I'm sorry."

"Every time I went back to the aid station, I was sure you'd be dead," he mumbled against her neck, his hands flexing convulsively on her waist. "I thought I'd find you blown to smithereens, your guts and blood all over, your eyes wide open and staring at nothing—"

"Stop, now," Brienne whispered. She was beyond shocked at such a display of deep emotion; Jaime hadn't shown himself to be anywhere near this concerned and affected by the events at the aid station. She was beginning to realize that he'd been playing it cool for her sake, to keep from giving her one more thing to deal with, and she felt awful to realize what stress he had been under while she was sunk so far into her own misery, but ignoring his. "Stop. It's fine. I'm fine, I'm right here, and so are you."

Eventually, he calmed, his quick breathing and rapid heartbeat slowing. He stepped back and turned away, hands raking through his hair.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice low and uncomfortable. "I shouldn't have done that. It's not fair to you to dump all my crap on you. My family's always said I feel things too much."

She stepped closer, just enough to rest a hand on his tight-strung shoulder. "You feel things just as much as you should," she told him. "And you were right. I was only thinking of myself. It was selfish. Don't— don't ever feel you can't tell me things. I might still get angry, but that doesn't mean our friendship is over. We'll just… shout at each other, and then make up, and move on. Okay?"

She felt him relax under her hand, but there was no time for him to reply.

_Rap rap rap! _The wooden door rattled in its frame as a fist banged upon it.

"Major? You in there?" asked a youthful voice: Podrick, the company clerk and a sweeter, more naive person Brienne had never met— not even herself, and that was saying something.

Jaime went to the door and pushed it open. "Yeah, Pod, I'm here. What is it?"

Pod's bright, curious gaze peered past Jaime into the tent. When he saw they were both vertical and fully dressed, the cards on the table clearly speaking of a game having been interrupted, he looked a bit… surprised? Disappointed?

"Just got a call from I Corps. Some more fighting just started up. You know that ridge called The Hook?" At Jaime's nod, Podrick continued, "That's where you're to go. You're expected there an hour ago."

Jaime sighed. "Be right there. Make sure my chopper's fueled, alright?"

Once Pod was gone and the door banged shut behind him, Jaime turned to face Brienne, forcing a smile to his lips. "So, are we good?"

Brienne nodded and forced a smile of her own. "We're good."

She busied herself by collecting all the spilled cards, tapping them into a tidy stack, while Jaime pulled on his fatigue jacket and leather bomber and laced his boots snugly onto his feet. She put the cards in his pack, made sure there was a canteen of water in it with a packet of C-rations and a blanket and some bandages.

"Will that be enough, Mother?" he teased, hand out for the pack. It had become a running joke between them, how Brienne fussed over what he brought with him when he flew. "Maybe I can fit a tray of surgical instruments in there, too. Just in case."

She scowled and pushed the pack into his chest. "Oh, go shove a hemostat up your nose."

Jaime laughed and took the pack, turning away and pushing the door open, but before he could step out she halted him with a hand on his arm. He was heading to the front, to the very thick of the fighting, and the idea of something happening to him was intolerable.

"Hey," she said softly, looking down at his collar to avoid meeting his eyes while she scraped together her courage. "Be careful, alright? You have to come back." She lifted her gaze to his, a thrill of fear and awareness skittering up her back at how he stared at her, unblinking, lips parting, the expression on his face surprised, almost incredulous. "Promise me?"

"Yeah, I promise," he said, his voice soft. "Anything for you, Tarth."


	5. Chapter 5

You shot through my anger and rage

To show me my prison was just an open cage

There were no keys, no guards

Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars

Over the course of the next day, Jaime returned eight times, his chopper loaded with wounded soldiers. He brought four each trip, and carried supplies back out to the battalion aid stations.

"You've been flying for over fifteen hours, now," Brienne told him on his last pass, when she ran up to the helipad to do triage on the latest arrivals. She had a flask of strong coffee and a bologna sandwich for him, both of which she handed over before stooping to tend the occupant of one of the panniers. "How's it going?"

"It's going," he said around a mouthful of bologna. "This last group here makes 839 soldiers I've transported from the front lines in the last year. That's sixteen more than my personal best, last year this time. That bastard Blackwater's got 842. If I can bring another four back, I'll beat him and win pilot of the year."

"I meant, how are _you_ doing?" she corrected, with a touch of reproach in her voice. She didn't care diddly about a record or beating Captain Blackwater or any pilot awards, only about him.

"Oh, me?" Jaime flashed her a devastating smile. "Don't worry about me. I'm bulletproof."

"You're really not." If he were too tired, he could get careless and make a mistake and end up dead, and he'd been flying through the night and well into the next day. "Pod got a report that there's anti-aircraft artillery happening, with how many choppers have been flying around today. The Chinese aren't too happy how many of our boys y'all are saving."

When he saw how concerned she was, his smile faded.

"I'm fine," he assured her. "This will be my last trip, and then I'm coming back to sleep for… oh, about four hours."

"Okay," Brienne agreed, though mentally she vowed to change his alarm to permit him at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep.

"Lieutenant," Major Mordane said sharply.

Brienne shot a look over her shoulder at her head nurse. "Coming, major." She looked back at Jaime. "Be careful," she told him, just as she had each of the other times he'd headed out yet again on another rescue flight. "Just one more trip."

"Just one more," he repeated, and smiled again.

Brienne checked that the supplies loaded onto the panniers were securely fastened and then retreated to the edge of the helipad. Hand shading her eyes against whipped-up dust as well as the overbright sun beating down on them, she watched as he steered his craft up and then away.

"Lieutenant!" Major Mordane exclaimed again.

"Yes, major!" Brienne hurried to meet up with the procession of litters being carried down the hill toward the hospital tent.

"It's disgusting, counting how many rescues he's made," the major told her as they jogged alongside a litter, her arm aloft with a bottle of whole blood like the Statue of Liberty with her torch. "As if they're not men, but just a number."

Brienne pressed a thick pad of bandages to the soldier's chest wound. "It's just his way of coping, major," she said in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. "Numbers are easy to cope with. Over 800 wounded people… that's far more upsetting. This way, it helps keep him going instead of giving up."

Major Mordane didn't look convinced, but she didn't say anything more about it.

The next few hours were a blur of scrubbing, gowning, prepping, and operating, over and over and over. It wasn't until the tide of wounded flagged and finally halted that Brienne had a moment to think about how long it had been since Jaime's last arrival. She went to the window and peered out at where night had fallen; it was full dark, not even just twilight or dusk, and had been for a while.

Jaime had been flying for almost twenty-four hours, by that point. The Hook, where the front was, lay fewer than 40 minutes away. Round-trip, including time for loading and unloading, should not have been more than two hours. His last departure from the 3099th had been six hours earlier.

The moment she was released from duty in post-op, she went to Pod in the clerk's office.

"Can you radio Major Lannister for me?" she asked him. "He should have been back long ago."

Pod agreed and began trying, over and over and over again for almost an hour, to no avail. Colonel Seaworth passed through the doors separating his office from Pod's and paused to observe them.

"Try again," Brienne urged him, her throat dry and aching with apprehension. _Something was wrong._

"Lieutenant…" said Pod, gaze darting to the colonel's.

"Lieutenant," said Seaworth in his affable manner, "I'm sure the major is fine. He's as tough as old boots, that one. He's probably just bunked down at another MASH unit or evac hospital for the night."

"He'd have radioed to let me know," she said, surprising him and Pod with how passionately she declared it. "I know he would. He wouldn't just let me wonder and worry."

Seaworth studied her with gentle eyes for a long moment before turning to Pod.

"Corporal, wire the other MASH units and evacs. Find out when the major was last seen. If it's more than an hour ago, come and get me." To Brienne, he said, "I'm going to catch a few winks while we wait for Pod to work his magic. You should too." When her rebellion showed on her face, he added, "That's an order, lieutenant."

Reluctantly, Brienne left the clerk's office and went to the tent she shared with three other nurses. None were there; probably still at chow or entertaining themselves with their sweethearts elsewhere. Brienne didn't care. She obediently lay down on her cot, certain she wouldn't be able to sleep a bit, but the efforts of the day caught up with her and dragged her under in only moments.

"Lieutenant?"

It couldn't have been long when Pod knocked on the door, because when she surfaced from the depths of unconsciousness, she was disoriented and still exhausted. She bounded to her feet and found him outside with the colonel.

"The major hasn't been seen since sixteen-hundred hours," Seaworth said without preamble.

Brienne looked to her watch but realized she hadn't put it back on after washing up after surgery.

"It's now twenty-hundred," Pod told her quietly.

_Four hours._ Jaime had been missing for four hours. And it was pitch-dark; no rescue mission could be mounted until daylight. To her shame, she felt her knees wobble and locked them so she didn't reveal the extent of her fear.

"I've contacted Captain Blackwater. He'll go out at first light and search."

That was ten hours away. What if his chopper had gone down close to the front? What if he were shelled or shot at? What if he were injured?

"I understand, sir," she replied hoarsely. "I'll… just try to get more rest."

It was a lie. There was no way she'd get any sleep that night, not while Jaime was out there somewhere. Ten hours was an eternity. Ten hours could be death if he'd been wounded, lost a lot of blood, went into shock. And that was if he were lucky… if he were captured, things could go much worse for him. The Chinese were not known for being compassionate to their prisoners of war.

And there was nothing she could do, no way she could find him. He was lost somewhere in the rough Korean countryside with nothing more than the crude kit she'd put together for him, more as a joke than anything else.

Back inside her tent, she paced and wrung her hands and fretted until the other nurses returned. Not wanting to stir their interest— they were all inveterate gossips who loved to insinuate that Brienne and Jaime were having a secret affair that Brienne was cruelly keeping mum about instead of generously sharing the details of with her beloved tentmates— she too went about turning in for the night. She went through the motions of changing into her pajamas and brushing her teeth and washing her face, all while decrying what a farce it was to pretend to normalcy on the outside while inside, she was close to wailing in despair.

What would she do if something had happened to Jaime? What would she do if he, too, died? Laying there in the dark, listening to the even breaths of the other women, staring up at the tent roof slanting overhead, Brienne began to bargain with the gods.

_Please_, she thought, _please let him be well. Please let him come back soon. I can't do without him. I'll do whatever you say, I'll make any sacrifice you want, just make him come back._

Unexpectedly, even her feverish pleas were not enough to keep her awake after the day of stress and activity she'd had. It was still dark when she jolted awake to the sound of banging on the door.

"What the heck—" mumbled one of the nurses, while the other two only groaned sleepily.

"Lieutenant Tarth!" came Pod's voice, muffled by the thick canvas of the tent walls.

"What's happening?" Pia asked sleepily.

"He's alive!" Pod exclaimed. "Major Lannister is alive and almost here!"

Brienne bolted upright, exchanging a look with the nurses. As one, they left their beds and the others began dressing while Brienne went outside to Pod. It didn't matter that she was in her pajamas; they covered everything anyway.

"What? When?" she demanded.

"Soon!" Pod glanced down at her bare feet, big and pale and cold on the pebble-strewn dirt of the compound. "Maybe you'd better get your boots on?"

She hurried back inside for that purpose, seeing the wisdom in it, and was back outside in a trice, heading toward the helipad. From overhead came the sound of the rotor, but its usual steady tempo was lacking, instead seeming to stutter and choke every few beats.

"The colonel's getting Major Mordane and the doctors," Pod told her, jogging alongside to keep pace with her longer strides. "I already woke the corpsmen and medics. They're headed there now."

Ahead, she could see the line of people making for the helipad, and beyond them, the chopper finally making its approach, barely visible against the dim night sky.

_Damned new moon_, she thought. If it had been brighter, perhaps one of the other pilots might have been able to go searching for him. Even with how little light was thrown, however, she could see the plume of smoke trailing from the back of the helicopter and her heart leaped into her throat as she broke into a run.

She held her breath as it descended with uncharacteristic clumsiness, none of Jaime's usual skilful grace apparent as it thumped to the ground, the engine dying with a shuddery wheeze. The corpsmen and medics moved in right away to get to the wounded, pulling them from the panniers and cockpit to deposit them on litters and begin triage.

By the time Brienne arrived, panting and sweating from exertion, Jaime was climbing out. He looked at her, gave her a shaky smile—

And collapsed, face-first, in the dirt.

.

* * *

.

Brienne dashed to Jaime's side, her heart in her throat.

"Jaime!" she exclaimed, searching over his back, trying to find where he was hurt, but could find nothing.

"There's nothing wrong with him besides being tired and crazy," rasped one of the wounded as he was being carried away.

"What?" Brienne demanded as one of the corpsmen helped her to heave Jaime's limp form onto a litter.

"We were just a mile from the front when a lucky shot hit us." The soldier, a corporal, paused as a medic started him on an IV. "Whatever did it took out the radio and damaged the engine, made it overheat, so we had to land."

Corpsmen began to load everyone onto jeeps for transport down the hill to the hospital tent. Brienne personally made sure Jaime's litter was strapped securely on the back of one of the jeeps and followed behind as it drove at a snail's pace.

"Then what?" she asked, slowing a bit so she could keep pace beside the jeep with the corporal sitting in its passenger seat.

"Instead of staying put like any sane man would, he waited for the engine to cool and then took us up again. We could only go about 200 yards before it overheated and we had to land again. Had to wait for it to cool before it could fly again. He did that over and over, all night long, until we arrived just now."

Brienne stared at him, then swiveled her head around to stare at Jaime. _What?_

"But why?" she asked, baffled. Why would Jaime doggedly persist at something so futile and unnecessary? If he'd just waited until daylight, assuredly someone else would have flown over them eventually, spotted them, and commenced a rescue. "Was he afraid you would be attacked if you just kept still?"

The corporal shrugged, then winced when it jostled something tender in his shoulder. "Nah, just said he had to get back to the three-oh-ninety-nine."

"He promised," croaked another voice from the litter strapped across the jeep's back seat. Brienne peered back and saw a private with a clumsily wrapped bandage around his leg gingerly roll his head to look her way. "That's all he would say. 'I promised'. And that he wouldn't let the Chinese make a liar out of him." The private huffed out a breath of astonishment. "I've been wondering for hours what could be so important that he had to get back to."

"Maybe he's got a girl here," said the corporal. "Guy like him must have someone special, right?"

Brienne ground to a halt, her mind whirling at the implications of that. It seemed utterly mad that Jaime would spend the better part of a night creeping home an inch at a time, just to keep his vow to return, and just as utterly like him to do exactly that. She didn't know whether to laugh at the lunacy of it or cry at how ridiculous and touching it was. She settled for a bit of each, letting out a little laugh of disbelief while a few tears leaked out.

"I'll be right down," she told whoever around them cared for her whereabouts, and dashed back to the helicopter, where the sergeant in charge of the motor pool had begun poking at it in hopes of diagnosing its injury. He only raised his eyebrows as Brienne leaned into the cockpit to grab the stuffed lion toy.

She had to jog to catch up to the slow parade of wounded, joining them just as they arrived at the hospital tent. The doctors had done a quick triage up on the helipad, and began treating the men in the order of urgency. Jaime, being only exhausted and not urgent at all, was dumped out onto a bed in post-op and left to snore as the rest were ushered into pre-op and Brienne joined the others in scrubbing.

Fortunately, none of them were so wounded that they necessitated very lengthy surgery, and all were resting in post-op with Jaime within a few hours. Brienne pulled off her gloves and dragged her mask down to dangle limply on her chest as she went to sit on the edge of his bed.

He'd rolled onto his back, at some point, and lay there with one leg bent and an arm flung over his head, utterly abandoned in sleep. The lines of strain on his face had eased and he looked far younger than usual. His hair was lank with dirt and sweat, and his clothes were filthy. She couldn't imagine how tired he must have been, and yet he had doggedly kept inching along to get back, just because he had promised her.

_Oh, Jaime._ Brienne couldn't resist the urge to brush a limp hank of hair out of his eyes. And then she couldn't resist the urge to wash him, because he really was very dirty. She filled a basin with soapy water, fetched a washcloth, and cleaned his face, neck, arms, and chest before calling for a corpsman to undress him, wash the parts she could not, and put him in pajamas.

Soon Jaime was scrubbed pink and resting under a crisp white sheet and warm wool blanket, and fatigue was weighing down Brienne's eyelids. She placed the lion toy on the small table by his bed and stumbled back to the nurses' tent, almost forgetting to remove her bloody scrubs before falling into her bunk. She caught herself in time, dragging off everything but her panties before sliding under the covers. She was asleep in seconds.

.

* * *

.

Brienne came awake slowly, her consciousness swimming upward at a leisurely pace from the depths of sleep. It was dim in the windowless tent, shadows clustering thickly in the corners, the other bunk and the ironing board and line of stockings and bras hung out to dry only dark silhouettes against the musty canvas behind them. She lay there a long time, staring at the underside of the bunk above her, and struggled to accept and cope with the array of realizations that had battered her the prior evening.

She'd been longing for her father since coming to Korea, to feel his burly arms around her and the comforting smell of the sea on him as he petted her hair and told her nonsense to settle her back down from a bad dream or a cruel memory. Jaime wasn't her father… but it was possible he might be even better. It was possible she'd been yearning for something else entirely.

For a long time— since meeting Renly and until his death— she had been immune to Jaime as a man, but something had shaken loose within her in the days since Triangle Hill. Some awareness of him as more than a friend had grown within her, though she'd been loath to admit it to herself.

Was it fear of rejection? Of ruining the best friendship she'd ever had? Whatever it had been, the pretense could no longer be maintained: Jaime was her best friend, yes, but he was also something more. Something expansively, infinitely more, something not merely important but essential. Those hours she had thought it likely that he was wounded, possibly dead, had stricken her with a terror so profound she hadn't known if she could bear it. It was melodramatic, yes, and silly, but it felt to her as if she could no longer live without him, as if some connection had formed between them so vital that if it were severed, it would be the end of herself as well as of him.

He had to know how much he meant to her, he had to! And he'd put himself in danger anyway, had deliberately thumbed his nose at the gods and gone to tempt fate. Anger pulsed through Brienne, sending a wave of irate heat through her, dispelled in an instant when she realized her reaction was precisely the same as his had been just the day before. He had raged at her for her carelessness, for how little she valued herself, just as she was furious at him for doing the same.

Did he feel the same urgent impulse to wrap her in cotton wool and secret her somewhere, protected and comfortable, keeping her safe from anything that might harm her? Because that was what she wanted for him, to hide him away from all risks and dangers, to erase those lines of weariness and effort from his dear face, to make him only smile…

And if he felt like giving her another hug such as they'd shared, the day earlier, too… well, she wouldn't be objecting to that any time soon, either.

She smiled even as she brought her hands to her face, wiping away the tears that had trickled down her temples to dampen her hair. Ah, what a muddle she'd made of things.

Despite the gloom of the tent, the light filtering through the canvas hinted at the strength of the daylight outside. It was a surprise she'd been let to sleep so long. She swung her legs out of bed and sat up with care not to bump her head on the bunk over her own. Standing, she tugged on the string to the overhead light bulb and squinted against the flood of illumination it brought.

Then she took a step toward her locker and stubbed her toe, because there was a little stool right by her bed where one usually wasn't. And on it sat Jaime's stuffed lion.

The sight of it should have made her smile, but instead it gave her a crawly sense of foreboding that had her scrambling into fresh fatigues. Why wasn't it still with him? As soon as her boots were laced, she snatched up the lion and left the tent, heading directly for Colonel Seaworth.

Pod looked sharply up at her when she burst through the swinging doors. "Lieutenant…" he said, his expression guarded as the door slammed shut behind her.

"Corporal, I need to speak with the colonel," she told him.

"He—" Pod said, but then the colonel himself came through the doors between his office and his clerk's.

"Pod, haven't we talked about how there's no need for slamming doors—" he began. His eyes widened upon seeing Brienne there, and an expression came into them at the sight of the lion that seemed knowing and regretful at the same time.

"Lieutenant, come into my office, if you would?" he asked, then led the way in.

She sat at his behest, the toy clutched in her hands as her feeling of apprehension grew.

"I have some good news and bad news," said Seaworth, taking his own chair behind the desk. "Which do you want first?"

"The good news first, I guess," she muttered, then as an afterthought, "sir."

He quirked a faint smile at her tardy honorific while placing a hand upon a small flat box before him. "Well, the good news is that after a number of people wrote to I Corps about your bravery and performance at Triangle Hill, I'm pleased to be able to give you a field promotion to captain."

He pushed the box to her side of the desk. Slowly, Brienne reached out and took it, flipping up the lid to find a set of captain's insignia resting on a bed of crimson velvet, just waiting to be fastened to her collar, and the matching patches to be sewn to her more formal uniforms.

"A— a number of people? Wrote to I Corps?" she asked numbly, staring down at the double rows of silver bars. "About _me_?"

"A considerable number," Colonel Seaworth confirmed. "Myself, Colonel Stark…" He glanced down at a typewritten page. "A Second-Lieutenant Jeyne Poole, a Captain Quentyn Martell… Captain Tyrell… a sergeant, a few corporals, more than a few privates…" He paused, with meaning, before concluding, "…and Major Lannister."

_Jaime, too?_

"In fact, Major Lannister spearheaded the effort," Seaworth continued. "Rounded up everyone who had been there, asked if they'd send a letter. Most of them did."

Brienne replaced the insignia box back on the desk and took up the lion once more, clutching it even harder than before. Her heart sang out in her chest, a wordless chant of mingled joy and anxiety. _Where was Jaime? _Why had he given her his lion?

"Then what's the bad news, sir?" she asked, very carefully modulating her voice so it didn't sound as if she were making demands of her CO. "And do you know where Major Lannister is?"

"I can answer both questions with one answer," he said, sympathy clear on his weathered, kindly features. "While you were asleep, some MPs arrived from the 121st evac. Seems that Colonel Tarly put the major on report for his actions the day of the Triangle Hill battle."

Brienne's eyes flew wide. "His actions? _What _actions? All he did was fly wounded from the aid station to MASH units!"

"_Those_ actions," said the colonel with a nod. "After delivering you there, it was decided that flying back and forth to the aid station was too risky, especially after the retreat was ordered. He was supposed to have been flying stabilized wounded from the MASH units to the 121st. Instead, he returned to the aid station several more times, against direct orders from his commanding officer, even after being informed he would face a court-martial for insubordination and going AWOL."

"He's being _court-martialed_?"

The blood drained from Brienne's head so rapidly she swayed in her seat. She dropped the lion in her lap to grasp the arms of her chair, clamping her hands on them, desperate for support.

"But… if he hadn't, we'd be dead," she croaked. "The wounded I treated that day, who he evacuated… at least a dozen men. And me. I'd be dead, too. "

"Tarly evidently felt you were acceptable losses." From his disgusted tone, Colonel Seaworth was not in agreement. "By continually returning to the front, Major Lannister risked a military aircraft. That's the tack Tarly is taking, with pressing these charges."

"He'd sacrifice the lives of a dozen soldiers and medical personnel for the sake of a helicopter?" Brienne was aware that her volume had risen but couldn't keep her outrage swallowed any longer. "He'd punish the best pilot in the entire Army, a man who has saved thousands of American soldiers over the course of his service, for a _helicopter_?"

"And whistle _Yankee Doodle Dandy_ the entire time," Seaworth replied dryly.

Brienne slumped back in her seat, staring at her CO in disbelief.

"Well, what can we do?" The idea of Jaime being arrested, confined, tried, sentenced— accused, degraded, his reputation irredeemably tarnished— not for any actual wrongdoing, but for his finest act, made her burn. Fire seemed to consume her, borne of righteous fury. She knew her color was high from the heat rising from her skin, that she was likely red as a rooster and looking unprofessional as an officer, but could not have cared less in that moment. "There has to be something we can _do_."

"I don't know that there is." Colonel Seaworth seemed regretful. "He was removed right after reveille and is probably in Seoul by now. He'll be in Tokyo for the duration of the proceedings."

"How long will that be?" The need to see him, to be with him, to even just speak with him, gripped Brienne like a fever. "Can I go to Tokyo as well? To make sure they know how many people he's saved, over the years, how we would have died, if not for him—"

"Captain," the colonel interrupted, not unkindly, "even if I let you go to Tokyo— which I will not, because then it will be my butt in a sling along with the major's— you wouldn't be allowed to see him. He's not allowed any contact whatsoever, except with his attorney."

All the heat that had been firing Brienne up turned, in an instant, to pure ice. If she couldn't speak with, or even write to, Jaime now… if he were found guilty of the ridiculous charges against him… she might never see him again. The conviction that she needed him, could not go on without him, rose within her once more, almost choking her with its power.

Slowly, she nodded, mind awhirl with ideas and wonderings for what she could possibly do to help Jaime.

"May I be dismissed, sir?" she asked. "I have… a lot of things to do."

Seaworth nodded. They both stood. Saluted. Brienne departed. Pod spoke to her as she passed through his office; she barely heard him. Her stomach, neglected for over a day, growled, so she went to the mess hall and collected some of the day's serving of fish, potatoes, and cauliflower.

Normally eating an entire tray of bland white nothingness would have her amused, making a mental note of telling Jaime about it— if he weren't there with her, eating his own tray of bland white nothingness across the table— but that day, she had other things on her mind. Treasonous things, possibly even seditious things. In that moment, she wouldn't have objected to hijacking a tank and rolling it through Tokyo and over Colonel Tarly and anyone else who thought to harm Jaime.

But soon, however, cooler thoughts prevailed. Violence was not the answer, would only end up with her being court-martialed alongside Jaime, and then where would they be? No, there was another way to go about it. She began formulating a plan.

Step number one: she needed to get him a proper lawyer. None of that public defender nonsense would do, not when it was an issue such as his freedom on the line. And she knew exactly who would help her get that proper lawyer for him.

Step number two: she had to ensure the tribunal knew what Jaime's motives had been, how many people he had saved, how the waste of such a stellar talent as his would be a detriment to the very war they were there to fight.

Step number three: she had to rally support for him. There was strength in numbers, and she wasn't averse to using the specter of bad publicity to coerce the US Army into doing the right thing. Wouldn't it be quite the scandal, for a decorated flyboy— a hero who had saved so many in his acts of derring-do— and who happened to be not only incredibly handsome and charismatic but also the scion of a wealthy and powerful family— to be maligned and mistreated by the military he had so faithfully served throughout not one but two wars?

By the end of her meal, she knew exactly what she was going to do, and how to go about it. The fire of a crusader gripped her, energy flowing in smooth waves through her veins. She was about to go to battle, and she was ready.


	6. Chapter 6

Well, now, all that's sure on the boulevard

Is that life is just a house of cards

Tonight, let's lie beneath the eaves

Just a close band of happy thieves

.

"Call from the three-oh-ninety-ninth MASH in Korea," Pod said into the phone. "From Brienne Tarth. Will you accept?" A muffled response sounded; Pod handed Brienne the phone receiver. "Okay, ma'am, you're through!"

"Hello?" she ventured at normal volume, unsure how loudly she might have to speak to be heard over the crackling static coming down the line. The call was being patched from the 3099th to Seoul, to Guam, and to Honolulu before arriving at its destination: Atherton, California.

"Hello?" responded a male voice, tinny over such a distance, but she could still detect the same resonance of tone she so enjoyed in Jaime's voice.

"Mr. Lannister? My name is—"

"The inestimable Lieutenant Tarth," he finished for her, amusement lacing his words. "Yes, my brother's told me all about you."

_He had?_ Brienne felt sweat break out on her forehead at the idea of what Jaime might have told his family about her. Since they'd become friends, he hadn't been anything but nice to her, even his teasing more joking than mocking. Still… it was Jaime. He could have said literally anything. The possibilities boggled the mind, in fact.

"Only good things, I hope," she said weakly. "And I've been promoted to captain."

"Felicitations! Well-deserved, I'm sure. So, to what do I owe the honor of this call?" he asked, still jovial, but growing serious in a heartbeat, clearly having the idea that something might be wrong. "What happened? He's not dead, is he?"

Brienne's heart clutched at the very idea. If Jaime were dead, she'd be in no state to deliver the news to anyone, that was for sure.

"No," she said, and could hear his relieved sigh even over the static. "But… he has been arrested. He'll be court-martialed."

"Court-martialed!" Tyrion let out a slow whistle. "What the hell did that idiot do? Last I heard, he wanted to drop turkeys from the helicopter to celebrate Thanksgiving… and there was the time he wanted to put methylene blue in the mashed beets so everyone would piss blue for a week…"

"The charges are insubordination—"

"Well, yes, that was just a matter of time, with him—"

"—and going absent without leave."

"Going AWOL! _Jaime_?" Tyrion gave a disbelieving laugh. "Never. The man made a promise, and he keeps those, even if it'll kill him."

An awful sick feeling swept over Brienne at Tyrion's words. _He made a promise._ He'd promised Brienne, too, that day at Triangle Hill. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"Oh, no. Oh, no."

"Captain, _what_?"

"The reason they've accused him of going AWOL is because of me," she said harshly, inundated with guilt as she recalled how fervently Jaime had vowed he'd return to get her. "He promised me he'd come back for me. And he kept trying to get me to go with him, and I refused every time. So he kept coming back, over and over. Oh, this is all my fault."

"Captain, what are you talking about?"

"I was at the front, at an aid station. There was a lot of shelling, a lot of critically wounded men. Medical personnel were dying, too. I was there for hours and hours… Jaime would come to get me away but I wouldn't leave, I couldn't leave the soldiers. They'd have died without me. I kept making him leave with another load of wounded and come back for more. I wouldn't retreat until everyone was either ready for transport or— or dead."

Her throat thickened as the mental image of poor doomed Renly, slumped over the remains of his hapless patient, blossomed yet again in her mind's eye.

"He repeatedly flew into a battle zone because you wouldn't leave it?" Tyrion was asking, sounding incredulous but also… resigned. As if he had a feeling something like it would have happened eventually. "Well, he sure went from one extreme to the other with the women in his life, didn't he?" He blew out a breath. "Just once, I'd like him to take the nice boring middle road."

What did that mean? "Mr. Lannister?"

"Tyrion, please. Mr. Lannister is our father, and the fewer things we have in common with him, the better." He fell silent for a beat. "Well, my dear, am I to assume you are calling to request help for Jaime?"

"Yes, please," she said in a rush. "The colonel who put him on report has it in for him, I think. This seems more like a grudge than charges with any real merit. I worry he won't have a fair hearing, or that he'll have a shoddy lawyer…"

"Well, that won't do. That won't do at all. Except… our dear father keeps my purse strings as tight as a nun's girdle. Jaime's got his own money, though, and I can access it." He paused. "Might take every cent he has, though. You alright with that?"

"What?" Brienne was back to being confused again. "Why would it make any difference to me? Better Jaime be poor than stuck in Fort Leavenworth for ten years." When Tyrion didn't reply, she prompted, "Isn't it?"

"Spoken like someone who's never been rich," came the reply at last, but he sounded weirdly satisfied, and not all that mocking. "To us, the specter of poverty is a fate worse than death."

Brienne rolled her eyes, then realized belatedly that he couldn't see it. "Hardy-har-har," she told him, to express her lack of appreciation for his 'humor'. "Can it be done? Will you do it? If Jaime doesn't have enough money, I've got some saved up."

She thought of the pay she'd socked away for… she wasn't sure what, exactly. To do something with, after the war was over and she was home once more. It didn't even amount to a thousand dollars.

"It's not much, but it's better than nothing," she said. "You can have it all."

Tyrion chuckled, but it was gentle, not at her expense. "Yes, from one extreme to the other. Can't say I blame him. The other extreme is a nightmare."

"That would make me a dream," Brienne said, "and… let's just say that I'm the farthest thing from a dream you can imagine."

"Depends on the dream," Tyrion quipped. "No, captain, I'll find a way to finance this little rescue mission without having to tap into your savings. You might find you need it, anyway. For… a nice little trip to Niagara Falls, maybe, once you're stateside again."

_Did both the Lannister brothers talk nothing but nonsense? _Brienne wondered. Niagara Falls was for honeymoons. She hadn't been invited to any weddings, and likely wouldn't be for a while, especially if she were to remain in Korea for any length of time.

"I'll get started on it right away," Tyrion was saying. "I'm glad you let me know. And, captain… take care of yourself. It would be terribly ironic to save Jaime from a court-martial only for you to perish from being overly heroic."

"Yes, thank you," she said politely, having no idea what else she could possibly say. He was very confusing.

Tyrion only laughed in response and hung up on her.

"Thanks, Pod," she said absently as she handed the receiver back to the young corporal, who hadn't even pretended to mind his own business, openly eavesdropping the entire duration of the call.

"I'm sure that will be just the ticket, ma'am," he said in his earnest way. She forced a smile and went back to the nurses' tent, where she gathered up the supplies she'd collected and made her way to the mess tent. At that time of the afternoon, between lunch and dinner, she'd have a good few hours to use the place as a temporary office space, in which she could write the letters she'd planned on.

There, she got to work. Pod had already supplied her with the names and stations of the men Jaime had flown on the day of the battle of Triangle Hill, from her aid station to a MASH. Of the 14 men, eleven had survived. In each letter, she provided brief details of Jaime's predicament and requested they send a letter to the tribunal in Tokyo mentioning how they would be dead if not for him.

By the time she had completed the eleven letters and had them tucked into the addressed envelopes, her hand was cramping. She decided that the last letter she would send, her own plea to the tribunal on Jaime's behalf, was too important to leave to her stiff and tired fingers. With a little cajoling— and a lot of guilt-tripping for his shameless eavesdropping from earlier— she got Pod to let her use his typewriter for the task.

In her usual slow and methodical way, she typed out an impassioned plea for the tribunal to understand Jaime's motives on the fateful day in question. She emphasized how unreasonable Colonel Tarly was, to decide a helicopter had more worth than a group of soldiers, and how ultimately Jaime's choice to keep flying had been a wise and important one, at least to those whose lives he had saved. She wasn't sure how effective "all's well that ends well" would be as a defense, but it was all she had to work with and she was going to do the best she could with it.

When she had read and reread it a handful of times to make sure she sounded like a coherent and sane Army officer, and there were no typos or egregious grammatical errors that would count against her, Brienne signed her name at the bottom. It was a strange thing, signing Captain Tarth over and over again, after she'd just gotten accustomed to signing as a lieutenant. She suspected she'd be including her rank with her signature long after returning to civilian life.

Once the letters had been put safely in Pod's hands, to be stamped and sent out, she permitted herself a sigh of relief. She had done well, that day; she couldn't fault her attempts to rally support for Jaime. There might be more she could do; she'd have to sleep on it.

…except sleep was not to be had, at least not that night: only moments after she'd finished dinner, the loudspeakers were announcing the imminent arrival of wounded by air and road. She leaped up from the mess hall bench to sprint toward the helipad, a pang in her belly when she thought of how the pilot of the chopper would not be the face she longed to see most in the world.

_Please be well, _she thought to Jaime. _Please work, _she thought to the letters she'd written. _Please, please, please._

_._

* * *

_._

The longer Brienne was separated from Jaime, the more concerned she grew. There was no word from Tokyo about the court-martial; even Colonel Seaworth had tried his best through upper-level channels to get an update about the proceedings, without a lick of success. She had contacted Tyrion Lannister again, and he had assured her that he'd retained an attorney for Jaime, a specialist in military law who would be winging his way across the Pacific in only a few days' time.

_It's not soon enough!_ she wanted to wail. _He needs to be released! He needs to be here, now, with me!_

But she only thanked Tyrion and hung up and concentrated on not chewing her fingernails to the quick.

It helped that she was kept busy, though that busyness was because of the inundation of wounded they were receiving. Battle had ramped up to a crescendo in recent weeks, even as yet another round of armistice meetings was taking place. No one had any optimism they'd work, since they'd never worked in the past. There had been at least two sets of peace talks in the year Brienne had been in-country, and neither had amounted to anything more than disappointment. No one bothered to get their hopes up, anymore.

And so despite talking about cessation of hostilities, the hostilities continued apace. Tensions were high: shortages were rampant, with last-minute supply deliveries being the norm instead of the exception; and the summer heat was at its zenith, with temperatures hovering in the 90s by day and only granting a few degrees of relief in the evening. Brienne laid in bed every night, sweating and listening to crickets chirping and Pia's muffled snoring and thinking about— worrying about— Jaime.

She wrote him letters, one each day. She knew he'd never receive them, but sometimes she felt like she'd burst if she couldn't somehow express herself to him. Over the course of the time she'd known him, it seemed like her solitary ways had fallen by the wayside. Jaime had wormed his way into her mind and heart, inspiring her to share herself with him even in the most mundane of matters, and the prospect of returning to her former solitude now seemed intolerably lonely.

She'd never been lonely, before Jaime, not really— more bored than anything else. She'd wished to be included with other children, growing up, and even in college would have enjoyed being an essential member of a social group, but the absence of it hadn't bothered her overmuch. It hadn't been the pervasive hollow ache that scored the inside of her chest at every thought of him, how yearning would bring a clutch of misery to her belly whenever she forgot his plight and then was reminded of it once more.

In the letters, she told him about what had been happening since his arrest: about how stern Major Mordane had gotten a three-day R&R pass to Seoul and come back engaged to a brigadier general, and how one of Colonel Seaworth's half-a-dozen sons had presented him with yet another grandchild, and how Pod was trying to earn a promotion to sergeant.

She told Jaime about how offensive it was that Colonel Tarly would hold him responsible for actions that had ended up saving the lives of so many, that the colonel would prioritize a stupid helicopter over those lives, that Tarly would seek to punish Jaime for being smarter and more compassionate and just plain _right_ in what he had done against orders, that day.

She told him what he meant to her, how she admired and respected him, not only for his actions that day but for what he'd done all the other times, as well: the times he'd gone to pick up some barely alive soldier who didn't have a hope of survival. It didn't matter if it were high noon or the dead of night, nor whether the wounded he was transporting were all certain to be dead by the time he arrived at a MASH. If a pilot were needed, Jaime was there.

And she told him how she loved him, how she longed for him, even only to be in his company, even if he did not return that love and longing. She'd be happy just for him to be by her side, to maintain their friendship. Having Jaime in her life in whatever capacity he would permit made the empty wasteland of her future seem bearable. He'd illuminated every dreary corner of her existence with the sunshine of his crooked grin and the way he loved to tease her into turning a flaming red, with his silly jokes and infuriating pranks and boundless enthusiasm.

The dichotomy of Jaime fascinated her; he was at the same time jaded and idealistic, usually saying the opposite of what he truly thought, and edging it all with a sort of acid humor that amused while digging claws into the soft belly of a person's insecurities. Though he'd stopped aiming it at Brienne a while back, and now reserved it for those who had earned that sort of treatment with their idiocy or boorishness. He suffered no fools, but would go to any lengths for those he deemed worthy of the effort. His loyalty, his commitment to his word, were unmatched, and she loved him all the more for it.

She told him of her dreams, of things she'd never before dared to admit she'd even considered, let alone wanted: of a home, children, laughter, _happiness_. Things that everyone else took for granted, but which she had always thought were beyond her reach because of her size and looks. For the first time, however, she thought maybe they weren't. For the first time, Brienne had hope to attain those things, and it was all because of Jaime.

She sealed each letter in an envelope of its own, with Jaime's name written on the front, and then tucked it into her footlocker underneath a stack of books and her winter underwear. The other nurses would observe this ritual daily, exchanging glances they thought Brienne unaware of. She knew they pitied her, for her dedication to a man so far out of her league it was as if he came from another planet. She didn't care. Loving Jaime wasn't only for him, it was for herself, too. She couldn't give it less than her best, not and live with her conscience.

Weeks passed. Still there was no word from Tokyo. Tyrion knew no more than Brienne did about Jaime's fate, other than how the tribunal hearing kept getting postponed and postponed until after the peace talks had concluded, the officers serving as judges apparently needed elsewhere. And yet they were all happy to leave Jaime languishing, confined to the Tokyo barracks without communication with the outside world. Brienne fumed, but of course it accomplished nothing.

On the thirty-second day after Jaime's arrest, Brienne was among those filing out of the hospital building after hours of surgery when the loudspeakers crackled to life. Though the full brunt of the day's heat was not yet upon them, it was still sweltering in the OR. They'd been operating since dawn and missed breakfast. They were weary and hungry and sweating like hard-run horses, and not a single one of them, down to the lowliest corpsman, was interested in whatever news Pod felt important enough to share with them while they were on their way to filling their bellies with the usual fare of powdered eggs, powdered milk, and powdered meat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, five minutes ago at 10:01 this morning, the truce was signed in Panmunjom. The hostilities will end twelve hours from now at ten p.m. The war is _over_!"

Pod sounded elated, almost hysterically so. A shocked hush fell over the compound, and then there was nothing but cheering, weeping, shouting and even howling, all joyful and relieved. Brienne stood in her bloody scrubs, a mask still dangling around her neck, and absorbed the news as if through deep water, full comprehension taking some time to truly sink in.

_I'm going home_, was her first thought once comprehension had fought its way past disbelief. Her second was, _Now Jaime's court-martial can proceed. _And her third was, _If I'm going home, I won't be here when his court-martial is over_, and the thought of having to leave him in Asia while she returned to North Carolina made a searing pain lance though her. The idea of so many miles separating them felt insurmountable, a barrier that could never be traversed.

She fought her way through the throng of soldiers and doctors and nurses, hugged and kissed and, in one notable case, goosed by those who were too delirious with glee to keep their hands to themselves.

"We're going home!" exclaimed Pia, who leaped into Brienne's arms to grip her in a stranglehold before releasing her just as quickly, turning to inflict the same treatment on one of the medics.

"Yes," Brienne agreed, and forced a smile, but despite her relief, she struggled to share in the euphoria. _Jaime_, she thought. _What about Jaime?_

Colonel Seaworth let them have a half-hour of frenzied jubilation before calling them to attention.

"Get to packing right away," he advised, "because we're expected to roll out of here tomorrow on the stroke of noon. The ambulances will take everyone to Seoul, and from there, you'll ship out. Within 48 hours, expect to be home again."

Another roar of exhilaration sounded out. Someone connected a Victrola to the loudspeaker and soon _Happy Days Are Here Again_ was booming throughout the camp. Someone seized Brienne in his arms and began dancing her around the compound; she fought him off until she realized it was just Captain Dondarrion, one of the doctors who'd always been polite and kind to her. Brienne forced herself to put aside her worry for Jaime, at least for a while— she'd busted her backside in Korea and deserved to celebrate just as much as the next person— and permitted herself a bit of fun.

She danced with the captain, then with the chaplain, and Pod, and Colonel Seaworth, and Pia and the rest of the nurses all at once– even dignified Major Mordane deigned to cut a rug with them on such an occasion. She accepted drink after drink of the foul homemade gin the doctors had concocted in their jury-rigged still, served to her in specimen jars, the only containers they could get their hands on at short notice. At some point, she was steered into the mess hall to eat lunch, dearly needed to soak up the gin. Then she aimed herself for the nurses' tent and collapsed into her bunk for a nap.

It was not to last; the war wasn't over _quite _yet, it would seem, because she was jarred from her nap by the loudspeaker announcing the arrival of wounded and the beating of a chopper blade in the distance. Brienne heaved herself up, enjoyed the luxury of thirty seconds of tooth-brushing— sorely needed— and then headed out to the helipad.

Captain Blackwater was there with four severely injured men. He smirked over the pannier at her as he had every day since Jaime's arrest, enjoying how he'd beat out his main competition with a staggering 912 soldiers rescued. Even if the war hadn't ended that day, there was no way Jaime could have made up the number by the end of the summer. And it was fine. Jaime was the best pilot in the Army not for how many he'd transported, but because of his courage and dedication. Brienne ignored the captain with a sniff and left with the wounded while he laughed and took off again for another load.

Ambulances arrived, as well, just as the unwelcome sound of artillery made itself known from afar. The front must have shifted closer over the course of the day. It made little sense, with the cessation of fighting so soon to come, but not much of the war had made sense, anyway. Brienne only prayed it didn't come any nearer. They had enough to worry about without having to endure operating by flashlight because a mortar had knocked out their generator… again.

Soon they were in the thick of surgery, with time losing its meaning in the ebb and flow of incisions and suction and retraction and exterioration and sutures. Brienne accounted for all the sponges used while removing the shrapnel from her patient's spleen, checked she'd gotten all of the bleeders, and began to close him up.

"It's almost ten," said Colonel Seaworth after Pod had crept in, mask clutched over his face, to remind him. The usual chatter of the OR faded and all that was left was the far-off booming and crashing of the battle a mile off. Seconds ticked by, loud as a heartbeat. Corpsmen carried away Brienne's patient and deposited another, this one with a through-and-through bullet hole in his shoulder bleeding through hasty bandaging from a nicked artery. Pia began anesthesia. Brienne looked over the fresh tray of instruments for everything she'd need and donned a new set of gloves.

The artillery stopped.

Silence fell.

The war was over.

The faint clatter of metal into basins, the snap of rubber on hands, the hiss of ether from a compression tank were all that could be heard, and then as one everyone sighed, a slow exhalation that marked the blessed end.

And then, they got back to work.


	7. Chapter 7

It's been a long, long drought, baby

Tonight the rain's pourin' down on our roof

Looking for a little bit of God's mercy

I found living proof

.

"Please, Pod, _please_!"

It was barely past dawn, Brienne was packed to leave Korea forever, and all she could think about was getting word to Tyrion that any efforts to help Jaime were up to him from that point forward. Losing the meager connections she had, to Colonel Seaworth and unit rosters and company clerk grapevines, effectively put paid to anything she could contribute to the cause. On the stroke of noon, she would be a civilian once more, and a poor one, at that.

Pod cowered back against the instrument panel, clutching a clipboard to his chest.

"Okay, fine, but if the colonel finds out, he'll have my keister in traction. So if you get caught, I didn't know anything about it!"

Brienne would have agreed to anything, at that point. She waited with barely leashed patience as Pod navigated that clerk grapevine and was slowly, laboriously, patched through from one base to another until, finally, they reached California.

"Tyrion!" Brienne exclaimed before he'd even finished saying 'hello'. Behind her, Pod crept out of the office and was gone. "I'm sorry! Hello! It's Brienne! The war is over!"

"Yes, I'm aware," he drawled back, sounding so like Jaime she felt a moment's impulse to weep. "How delightful for you."

"I'm going to be out of here in five hours," she told him. "And then anything I can do for Jaime will be over with."

"I understand," he replied after a moment. "What can I do for you?"

"For me?" Brienne was momentarily taken aback. She wasn't calling for _herself_. "Nothing. I just wanted to be sure you would… keep fighting. For Jaime. Since I can't." She bit viciously into her lower lip, trying to stave off the tears that threatened. "But… let me know if there's anything I can do. I'd camp outside the base in Tokyo, if I could. If it would do anything for him."

"We don't need both of you court-martialed," said Tyrion, chuckling. "Leave it to me."

Brienne let out a sigh of relief, or as much relief as she could feel with Jaime's fate still so uncertain. "Thank you," she said with feeling.

"What's your itinerary?" he asked. "You're leaving in a few hours? Then what?"

"Then Seoul, a troop transport to Guam or Hawaii. From either of those, either San Francisco or San Diego. Probably a layover there until the next morning, then on to North Carolina."

"If you're to go to San Francisco, will you let me know?" Tyrion asked. "I would enjoy hosting you here overnight."

"Oh, are you near San Francisco?" She hadn't realized, had thought it closer to Los Angeles.

Now Tyrion laughed outright. "You really have no idea about our family, do you?"

She scowled, though he could not see it. "I've had more on my mind, the last year or so, than checking the pedigrees of my friends. Besides, didn't our ancestors stop caring about how blue their blood was when they moved to America?"

He just kept laughing. "I cannot wait for my father to meet you."

"I won't go to your house if he'll be there," Brienne said immediately. She'd heard far more than she wanted about Tywin Lannister. "_Or_ your sister." There was a distinct risk she'd begin slapping Jaime's twin and never stop.

"Fear not, he's in New York," Tyrion assured her. "And dear Cersei is in Washington. The only tiresome person you'll have to endure is myself."

"Okay," she said grudgingly. "But I'm calling collect. From Honolulu or Guam, it'll be a doozy."

"Lucky for you, I love a good doozy."

"Captain!" Pod skidded through the swinging doors, a look of panic on his boyish face. "You have to— the colonel— it's time!"

"Got to go," Brienne managed before Pod wrenched the receiver from her hand and hung up with such force that the whole unit clanged.

"Go! Go!" he exclaimed, shoving her through the doors to post-op. "Go pretend you're doing a last-minute check of the patients!"

No sooner had the doors fallen shut behind her than Brienne heard him say, "Colonel! Are you all packed, or do you need help, sir?"

Brienne snatched at a clipboard hanging off the foot of the nearest patient's bed and scrutinized its contents without seeing a word. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Colonel Seaworth glance through the little square window in the door and made sure she was looking appropriately dedicated and nurse-like.

As she performed a rote check of the patients' conditions, her mind started to contrive all manner of disastrous scenarios for meeting Jaime's brother in California. What if their father or, worse, their sister returned unexpectedly? She should definitely not go.

But… it was one last chance for a connection with Jaime. If things went terribly wrong, if he were convicted, imprisoned, it could be the last scrap of contact she had with him, even removed as it was through Tyrion.

And thus it was that, upon landing at the Army base in Honolulu, she managed the few minutes required to phone him.

"I will be coming through San Francisco," she told him. "Then departing from there the next morning at eight a.m."

"Hardly enough time to get to know each other," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

In San Francisco, exhausted and desperate to get out of her crumpled uniform, by that point worn for almost 24 hours, Brienne felt the first inkling of despair when she wondered how on earth she'd figure out which servant Tyrion had sent to fetch her from the airport.

She needn't have worried; within just a few minutes, she heard someone calling, "Captain Tarth!" She turned toward the voice and found a very small man making his way to her. Jaime had told her, only once, that his brother was a little person, so Brienne was only surprised that Tyrion had come personally.

Tyrion led Brienne from the airport to a periwinkle-blue Lincoln Cosmopolitan. After almost two years of either cheap vinyl on the jeep seats, or no upholstery whatsoever, sinking into the deep leather bench beside Tyrion was almost shocking in its luxury.

"I just had a thought!" she exclaimed when the car, driven by a blank-faced chauffeur, steered the car smoothly into traffic. "I'll be sleeping in a _bed_ tonight!"

"Yeeees," Tyrion replied slowly. "We also provide running water and flushing toilets."

Brienne couldn't repress the happy sigh. "God willing, I'll never have to use a latrine again." Turning sideways to face Tyrion, she continued, "And no one will wake me at three in the morning to pick shrapnel out of anyone's intestines! Or amputate a leg! Or put someone's eye back in, or—"

"Yes, thank you, I take your point." Tyrion hastened to cut her off, looking a bit green.

"Sorry," said Brienne, chastened. "It's only that… it just hit me. The war really is over. It was so awful, there, and felt like it would never end. Twenty hours of surgery in a row… the terrible food… weather so hot the soles of our boots melted, or so cold I didn't think it was possible we'd survive… watching people blown to bits before our eyes… and it's finally over."

She paused. "Well, not for Jaime. It's not over yet for him."

"At least he's in Tokyo," Tyrion said. "He won't be in palatial accommodations, but he's also not in some godforsaken foxhole getting bombed back to the Stone Age by the Chinese."

Their eyes met in an accord of relief, complicit in their love for Jaime. Tyrion cleared his throat.

"It won't be a moment until we arrive at the Rock," he said. "I had thought to put you in Jaime's room, from before he deserted the old homestead for a life of adventure and whimsy with the military. I can have a meal sent up, you can bathe— we have seawater taps as well as fresh— you can sleep, whatever you like."

"All of the above, please," Brienne replied. "And in that order."

"It's all yours," he said with a laugh, "in exactly that order."

But even after eating a delicious lunch, soaking in a deep tub of seawater, and slipping between the sinfully plush covers of Jaime's childhood bed, Brienne was too keyed up to sleep. She couldn't stop looking at his things: little items he'd collected, souvenirs, sports trophies, team pennants. And photographs of Jaime, with Tyrion, but also with a gloriously beautiful young girl whose smiles seemed hard, somehow, and brittle. That girl did not seem to have ever experienced joy, and Brienne pitied her. Especially since she had been foolish enough to discard Jaime's love. Such a precious thing was not to be sneered at, but sneer Cersei had.

Not wanting to feel that cold stare upon her, Brienne donned a clean set of fatigues— all she had to wear was Army-issue, to her chagrin— and made her way downstairs. A maid directed her to Tyrion's location, a magnificent library lined with mahogany bookcases and filled with oxblood leather furniture. Heavy gold draperies ensured that not a single stray beam of sunlight might penetrate that gorgeous sanctum and fade its precious contents. It smelled intensely masculine, a blend of expensive tobacco and fine cognac and old leather.

Tyrion removed the cigar from his mouth and put his glass of brandy down on the desk as she approached.

"I can see fashion is not a priority of the Army," he commented, running a keen eye over her attire.

"They had other things to worry about," she agreed with a tiny smile. Then she produced from her pocket the little vinyl pouch she'd been storing her money in, placing it before him on the desk.

"What's this?" Tyrion asked as he reached for it, pulling the zipper tab and withdrawing a wad of cash. He looked down at it for a long moment before glancing back up at her. "I'm not charging you to stay here overnight, you know."

"It's my savings," she told him. "For Jaime's lawyer." He stared blankly at her. "In case he doesn't have enough." Why wasn't he saying anything? "You mentioned, before… that he might not have enough." She shrugged helplessly. "It's all I have. But you should use it. For him."

Brienne decided it was time to shut up and stopped talking. She stood there, feeling horribly awkward and huge and ridiculous, quashing the impulse to shuffle her feet like some yokel on his first trip off the farm.

Tyrion smiled up at her, that same luminous, beaming smile Jaime sometimes trained on her, that would make her heart feel full to bursting.

"You should keep it," he said gently, replacing the cash in the pouch and handing it back. "It turns out that the lawyer was less expensive than we thought, and Jaime had more money than I had realized. So don't worry."

He ran a critical eye over her again. "Use it to buy yourself something pretty. In blue, I think. Jaime will enjoy seeing you in blue."

They passed a pleasant evening together, walking the manicured grounds until it was time for dinner, eaten on an elegant veranda overlooking the city. Tyrion was an agreeable companion and she could quickly and easily see why Jaime was so devoted to him. Tyrion's devotion to his brother was equally evident, and it pleased Brienne to know she was not alone in admiring Jaime's finer points, even as she acknowledged that, fine men though they were, they remained very much acquired tastes that only a few might appreciate.

The next time she tried to go to bed, she fell asleep effortlessly, afloat on a sea of comfort, and dreamed of Jaime. She wanted to see him smiling, happy, his eyes gleaming with humor, but all her subconscious would show her was his face when he'd arrived at the aid station after Renly's death, the dirt and blood on his skin after he had helped her operate, the lines of strain across his forehead and bracketing his mouth as he'd managed flight maneuvers no one else in Korea— maybe in the world— could have managed, to get them out of the line of fire.

And if it weren't those unwelcome expressions, it was how he'd looked as he'd shouted at her, angry she had taken her own life and worth for granted. How dismayed he'd been in the face of her upset about Renly's mistaking her for someone she was not. Over and over, scene after scene, it was just an unhappy, stressed Jaime, and when she woke up, she was filled with a sadness and fear that would not budge no matter what cheery nonsense she told herself.

She found that, at some point after she'd fallen asleep, someone had come into her room and taken all of her clothing to be laundered, then returned it hung neatly on satin-padded hangers. She might have to shoehorn herself back into her class A uniform one last time, but at least it would be clean and fresh instead of sweaty and wrinkled as it had been when she'd peeled it off the day before.

After quibbling over it for some long minutes, Brienne decided to leave the fat packet of letters she'd written to Jaime in his room, on his bed. She might well never see him again, but odds were good that he'd find his way back to his ancestral home eventually, and when he did, she wanted him to know that someone loved him. That _she_ loved him.

"I… I left something for Jaime on his bed," she croaked to Tyrion as they parted in the airport. "I don't know when it will be possible, but… can you make sure he gets it?"

He gave her a solemn nod. "I will," he promised, and it sounded so like how Jaime would promise her— _Anything for you, Tarth_— that she had to blink rapidly to keep from crying. She spun on her heel and marched into the gangway.

On the plane, she sat rigidly throughout takeoff, trying steadfastly to ignore how much more knotted her stomach became with each mile further east, further away from Jaime back in Tokyo.

_That's it,_ she thought when the Rocky Mountains appeared in the distance after a while. _It's done._

But convincing herself of it would take far longer than a mere plane trip.

Brienne's arrival in North Carolina was met with little fanfare, but she didn't want much of it, anyway. Her height, and the uniform, drew stares, but she was used to it by that point. She felt numb and miserable and relieved, all at once, and all those teeming emotions made her head ache. By the time she spotted her father in the crowd, her head was pounding fit to beat the band.

Selwyn took one look at her and asked, "So, who is he?" And Brienne embarrassed herself thoroughly by bursting into tears, hiding her crumpled face against his broad chest, her shoulders heaving as she wept silently.

She rebounded swiftly, as always, and after only a short while she peeled herself away and straightened.

"Let's go home," he said, and Brienne followed him from the airport and out to his battered old '34 Chevy pickup. It coughed and sputtered as he coaxed it to life. She noted how, in the time she'd been gone, the floorboards had finally rusted through and she could watch the cracked pavement speed by under her feet.

"Time for a new truck at last," she ventured when she felt sure her voice wouldn't break.

"Could be," he agreed amiably.

A half-hour passed in silence. Brienne trained her eyes out the window, at the increasingly swampy land as they drove east. Somehow, even the familiar stink of marsh gas was welcome after a year-plus in Korea.

"He's a helicopter pilot," she said. "Jaime."

Fifteen minutes later, Selwyn asked, "He love you back?"

Brienne stared down at her hands, big, rough-skinned, with reddened knuckles and cracked nails. She remembered the feel of Jaime's strong, solid body in her arms, the one time they had embraced, how fiercely he had clutched her. The emotion in his voice as he'd shouted at her.

_How dare you?_ he'd demanded, eyes blazing. _How dare you act like it wouldn't kill me to lose you?_

"I think he might," she said softly. That was good enough for her father; if he had any other questions, he kept them to himself for the remainder of the ride.

The decrepit old ferry groaned and creaked across the sound to Tarth Island. Once it arrived at Evenfall, the Chevy wheezed its way off the boat and trundled down the sloping road into town. It seemed bizarre that the town could be so unchanged after all that Brienne had seen on the other side of the world.

How was it possible that Mr. Blake's grocery looked exactly as it had two years earlier? Mrs. Houlihan was sweeping off her front porch as she did every day around this time, and Mr. Burns waved as he went to fetch the mail from his battered old mailbox, which was still listing to starboard as it had when she'd last seen it. The normalcy of everything made tears prickle her eyes again, but she blinked and blinked until they went away.

The house was just like it had been, of course. A little messier, perhaps, but so comfortingly similar that Brienne felt like a weight was falling from her back. She was home, she was safe, she could breathe again.

Time moved on, as it is wont to do. Days passed. Brienne got a job at the local clinic. She did not hear from Tyrion. Letters she sent to the base at Tokyo went unanswered, as she expected. She resigned herself to a long, frustrating wait for developments, and mentally hunkered down for the duration. She would keep faith as long as it took.

Two months after her return, Brienne was in the clinic examining a child for mumps when she became aware of a sound that was unusual— for Tarth Island— and familiar at the same time.

"Dr. Pierce!" she called, plunking the toddler back in Mrs. Hunnicutt's arms. "I have to– I'll be back! Later!"

Brienne wrenched off her gloves and began moving through the clinic, faster and faster, until she was running. Outside, she skidded to a halt as she peered skyward at the helicopter skimming over Evenfall. There was a strong headwind off the ocean that day, but the chopper didn't drift so much as a foot off course.

There was only one pilot Brienne knew of who could manage such a feat.

She waved frantically at him while the wind it created whipped her hair from its neatly pinned style. There was no airport or field. All the back yards were too small. Where could he land?

After hovering over her for a few moments, the helicopter headed north. It quickly became clear he was heading for Mrs. O'Reilly's farm just outside of town, and Brienne knew Jaime meant to land in the cornfield. Mrs. O'Reilly wasn't going to like that much, but at that moment, Brienne could not have cared less. Giddy, rejoicing, she took off at a dash after him.

By the time she arrived at the cornfield, the chopper had landed, its rotor slowing to a lazy spin. The door opened, and— there he was. In civvies, now, without his leather jacket on, not a hint of the military about him. Brienne kept running, heedless of the ragged corn stalks tearing at her stockings.

Jaime ran, too, like his life was depending on it, and they crashed together like a wave and the shore.

"Brienne," he gasped in her ear. "Oh, god, Brienne."

"Jaime," she sobbed, clutching him so tightly she feared she'd leave bruises, yet unable to loosen her grasp. Not after he was finally where he belonged. "You're here— I can't believe— what happened?"

"When the war ended, it took weeks for the tribunal to get past more important trials to something as dinky as mine, and when they did, the file was somehow three times as thick as it had been before. There were letters– a lot of them– defending me, explaining what I did at Triangle Hill." He pulled back, just enough for them to look each other in the face, and grinned at her. "I wonder how that could have happened."

"It was me!" she told him, foolishly earnest and grinning back. "Everyone I could get to do it, I talked them into it."

"I know you did." He gazed at her with eyes gone bright with joy. "It didn't take the tribunal but a few hours to decide that the AWOL charge was ridiculous. But I had been insubordinate, they couldn't ignore that, so they demoted me one rank and gave me an honorable discharge." He squeezed his arms around her waist. "We're both captains, now."

"When was this?" Her hands gripped his shoulders, trying to make the fact of his presence soak into her skin, somehow.

"Two days ago. When I got to San Francisco, I learned you'd been there. Tyrion had a lot to say about you."

"Mostly good, I hope," Brienne said faintly. It was rare that she made good first impressions. Her ugliness usually shocked people, and not in a positive way.

"All good. _Everything _good," said Jaime, then took a deep breath. "I found your letters… they were… _Brienne_." His voice trailed off, as if he lacked the words to speak his mind. His gaze roamed greedily over her face, his expression wondrous. "I've loved you since Triangle Hill. You were the bravest thing I'd ever seen. That's why I kept going back. I knew they'd court-martial me, that I was throwing my career away. I didn't care. None of it would have mattered, if something had happened to you."

Brienne couldn't stop the tears coursing down her cheeks. "Is that why you crept back to the three-oh-ninety-ninth, 200 yards at a time, like a crazy person?"

"Had to get back to you, Tarth. I promised." His hands came up to frame her face, holding her like she was made of crystal. "I had to get back to you then. I had to get back to you now."

Her hands were on his face, too, enjoying the scratch of stubble on his cheeks, the sleekness of his eyebrow under the pad of her thumb.

"I'm not letting you go again," she whispered, tilting her forehead to rest against his, noses pressed together. The damp heat of his breath against her lips was the best thing she'd ever felt. "Not ever, Jaime."

He kissed her, then, and it made fireworks go off behind her eyelids, her blood seeming like it was filled with stars and glitter, silver and gold and every color in between.

"Do you promise?" he asked hoarsely when they separated for air at last.

Mrs. O'Reilly was beginning to stomp across the field toward them. A few people from town had followed Brienne's wild race to the farm. In the distance, a cloud of dust was being kicked up by the passage of a rickety old pickup truck making its slow, ponderous way toward them.

"I promise," Brienne told him, kissing him over and over, all over his face. "Anything for you, Lannister."


End file.
